


Start a Revolution (From My Bed)

by untilourapathy (gwendolen_lotte)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Activism, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Awkwardness, Banter, Bisexual Harry Potter, Breakfast, Coming of Age, Crafts, Discussion of Abortion, Feminism, Footnotes, Friendship, Harry Potter Thinks Draco Malfoy is Up to Something, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Jam, M/M, POV Harry Potter, Person of Color Harry Potter, Person of Color Hermione Granger, Pining, Ron Weasley is a Good Friend, many questionable fashion choices, more jumpers than the Weasleys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-25
Updated: 2018-03-25
Packaged: 2019-03-25 06:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13828095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwendolen_lotte/pseuds/untilourapathy
Summary: Harry’s coming of age starts at breakfast.





	1. Dramatis Personae

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from 'Don't Look Back in Anger' by Oasis. [Here is an accompanying playlist.](https://open.spotify.com/user/gnwdmwj36epf5my51wu0j2tnc/playlist/7gNh075kXRxpzU6MUcY5JF?si=bdDiSaYVQ-W-obJ-uIOipA)
> 
> Many thanks to the mods, my alpha GingerTodgers and my betas Frnklymrshnkly, TDCat and Carpemermaid. This couldn’t have happened without you.

 

 

**A Who’s Who of Eighth Year**

  
**_Gryffindor_**

**Harry Potter**  
our lovely narrator, a boy prone to overthinking who does not see himself as quite a man  
**Hermione Granger**  
the mastermind of everyone bar herself  
**Ron Weasley**  
probably a better person than your favourite  
**Parvati Patil**  
a lepidopterist with a smoking habit  
**Dean Thomas**  
horribly in love with his best friend  
**Seamus Finnegan**  
the best friend in question  
**Neville Longbottom**  
never underestimate a boy in cardies  
**Fay Dunbar**  
apparently only memorable when standing next to Draco Malfoy  
**Felicity Worthington**  
Fay’s friend

 

**_Slytherin_ **

**Draco Malfoy**  
a supposedly secret progressive with a penchant for pâté  
**Pansy Parkinson**  
professional rich person  
**Tracey Davis**  
excellent at using her eyebrows  
**Blaise Zabini**  
a threat of the highest order  
**Sophie Roper**  
owns a scarf

 

**_Ravenclaw_ **

**Morag MacDougal**  
the sole person keeping the Muggleborns’ Bubbaloo black market in business  
**Terry Boot**  
who?  
**Michael Corner**  
also irrelevant  
**Oliver Rivers**  
supplier of readings  
**Padma Patil**  
got a bob and a new attitude with that

 

**_Hufflepuff_ **

**Justin Finch-Fletchley**  
rapidly accruing cultural capital  
**Lily Moon**  
an intersectional feminist  
**Eloise Midgen**  
has replaced acne with a fondness for hunting gear  
**Hannah Abbott**  
proprietor of a creative mind  
**Stephen Cornfoot**  
an unfortunate name to go with an unfortunate man  
**Zacharias Smith**  
constantly feeling attacked  
**Wayne Hopkins**  
a firm believer that sexism doesn’t exist


	2. Chapter 2

‘It’s _January_ , you titfuck, there is simply no need to be woken up at the arsecrack of dawn for any sort of announcement. It’s still dark out,’ grumbled a rather irate Ron.

‘Chin up, mate, you’d wake this early for Quidditch. And it’d be dark until, what, eight or nine, anyway,’ Harry offered. Harry was determined to maintain this positivity venture. It made his Mind Healer happy, it made Hermione happy, it made Neville happy. Only it didn’t seem to make him very happy, which he supposed was the point of trying to be positive in the first place. But he preferred not to think of such things. Did that count as positivity?

Ron simply rolled his eyes. ‘If this makes me a bad person, so be it. Quidditch over whatever this is, any day. There is no reason to be up right now, important announcement my arse. We’re eighteen and we’ve fought in a war, if it’s a matter of life and death I think we’ll be fine.’

‘Touch wood,’ Dean muttered. ‘I mean, it is your choice to have breakfast beforehand. I don’t think the girls are eating before they go,’ Dean said, a little louder this time. ‘That way they don’t have to get up much earlier.’ Dean had always been the more temperate, sensible one, and being madly in love with Seamus had only made him more so, Harry thought.

‘But it’s a cooked breakfast. A _cooked breakfast_. Even if I have to put up with Malfoy’s whining over his ‘subpar’ pain au chocs, it’s still a cooked breakfast,’ Ron said. It seemed that his effort to be friendlier with Malfoy had not erased all of his common sense, as he, like anyone sane, still found Malfoy’s whinging over proper flaky almond croissants or whatever mind-numbingly irritating.

‘Oi,’ Seamus piped up, ‘no need to big it up too much, yeah? Their soda bread is abso shite, only marginally better than their sorry excuse for toast. You’d think they’d do a better job after all this time, eh?’

‘In all fairness,’ Harry countered, pulling his sleeves down for warmth as he tripped down the stairs, ‘the elves make the toast just fine. It’s only grimy because the Third Years are always smearing their jammy hands on it. And,’ he said, finding his balance again, ‘would you rather have had her schedule this weird fuckin’ announcement on the bloody weekend? Or after the end of lessons, missing dinner and getting the shit leftovers after the Seconds have mangled the casseroles?’ It seemed that Harry wasn’t doing too good a job at this whole positivity lark after all. But, in all honesty, mangled casseroles were far from ideal.

‘Fairs, mate, fairs. Right then, off we go. Do you think I can inhale an entire one of those grilled tomatoes, the big ‘uns, in one?’

‘Yes,’ came a chorus of Gryffindor boys as they trekked to the Great Hall, entirely accustomed to Ron’s way of placation by now.

Post-Yuletide cheer hadn’t quite stretched into Wednesday, Harry thought ruefully as he squished in next to Ron, and morale was low on the Eighths’ table. No wonder, with it being a good half-hour earlier than usual. It was just the Eighths as well who were up early, and Harry had no idea what special announcement McGoons was going to make that required half a fucking hour of their time, this early in the morning as well.

So that was how three days into the new term, breaking point was reached. The situation was hardly improved by four consecutive owls dive-bombing Hermione’s brekkie, one owl crushing her perfectly formed egg yolk, the next leaving a feather in her porridge and the third spearing her Cumberland.

The fourth, however, decided to shit into Malfoy’s elderflower cordial. This guaranteed that the whole table would never hear the end of it until, well, something more dramatic happened to Malfoy. Harry thought that owl shit could only really serve to improve the taste of Malfoy’s awful sugary fizz, but he also felt that keeping it to himself was the safer option this early in the morning. Malfoy was known for his excellent aim.

Still thinking about Malfoy's concoction, of which elderflower-to-water ratio was key[1], he missed Hermione’s reaction upon opening the first letter. And the second, and the third - although he managed to turn to his left just in time to witness the outrage that clouded Hermione’s features upon reading the fourth. Harry prided himself upon being a good mate, which often meant that he went along with whatever Hermione was thinking at the time. So, in an effort to share in the anger, and maybe even help, he reached for the letters only to be stopped by a furious Hermione.

‘What do they say?’ asked a concerned Ron, who was always a solid friend. Harry reached for the toast, tilting his head towards them as he offered a slice to Ron.

‘You know. The usual,’ Hermione replied, anger silent. ‘Accusing me of fucking my way to my Order of Merlin, sucking my way into this vanilla threesome thing we must have going on here - because the notion of friendship is _absolutely_ inconceivable - that I should leave the fighting to the men, telling me to relax my hair, telling me that braids are a bad look, telling me to take my hair out of locs… You know what? You don’t need to know. I will not _give_ them the _satisfaction_ -’

‘The usual?’ Ron asked. ‘You get this every day,’ he said, disbelieving. ‘Every fucking day,’ he repeated, tone in slight awe. Harry could feel his legs tensing underneath the table, see his face go blotchy red, indignant, hurt. He placed a calming hand to Ron’s leg. Hermione didn’t need more of a fuss made, what with Ron going all loud and shouty.

Hermione’s pressed lips said it all.

‘That’s so fucked up. Literally so fucked up. We need to do something about this, Mione,’ Ron said, eager as always. ‘Some sort of post filtering spell, or summat. This is actually unacceptable. Genuinely vile. I won’t stand for these – these shitty strangers sending you anonymous hate. Listen, yeah, listen. Tell them they can direct all these terrible comments to me. See how I respond, then.’

This was why Ron was a better friend than Harry. He was always willing to do something. Meanwhile, Harry had no clue what on earth he was supposed to say or do. He found himself having to unclench his fists, unsure of how they ended up like that in the first place.

‘But _why_ ,’ Ron said.

Hermione looked up at the ceiling. ‘Why did Parkinson call Angelina’s braids ‘worms’ in Fifth Year? Why was Ginny discouraged from playing Quidditch because she was a girl? You tell me, Ron, you tell me,’ Hermione said.

‘Honestly?’ Hermione said with a sigh, gathering all the letters into her arms as she grabbed a new plate of owl-free food. ‘I wouldn’t have said or done anything if it weren’t for the _principle_ of the matter, you know? The younger years must be getting this hate too, or will, anyhow, and for me to sit here and do nothing when I receive this shit is absolutely horrid of me, because then who will?’

No one said anything. Harry squirmed; the silence was getting to be rather uncomfortable.

‘It’s apathy, you know. Apathy. That’s the real enemy of progress,’ Hermione said, if a bit pointedly. And loudly, at that.

This led to Parkinson eyeing Hermione rather particularly and announcing her post-Hogwarts plans to vegetate for a living across Europe, perhaps the Middle East, and then finally in the Caribbean somewhere, volume increasing with every word.

‘Sun,’ she declared. ‘I want lots of it. The stresses and trials of the last year or two have really put a strain on my skin.’

Ron snorted, elbowing Harry. ‘That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.’

‘So I plan on doing absolutely nothing for a few years,’ she continued. ‘Sunbathing, preferably in the nude, in Draco’s Greek villa or his Black family ksar. It’ll be absolutely fab. Fab fab fab. You’re _sure_ you want your life of activism when you can have a life of professional apathy, Granger?’

Harry thought this life of apathy was as good as he was going to get, these days. He couldn’t do anything but disappoint anyone these days if he tried anything. Would never be good enough, not for their pedestal. Hermione just glanced at the ceiling, looking about five seconds away from throttling Parkinson. Malfoy simply put his hand over Parkinson’s to quiet her, glancing over at Hermione and her badge. Harry hoped Malfoy wouldn’t be joining Parkinson in nude sunbathing in Greece. It would be entirely improper of him. Yes, improper, he thought, shaking away any thoughts of Malfoy, in the nude, in the sun…

To distract himself, Harry picked up the letters from where Hermione’d left them on the table and began to read. Fury began to rise from beneath the layers of apathy that’d swallowed his feelings since the war as he followed the cursive with his finger, ink splattered in vitriol. But it was safer not to care, after all.

Hermione, visibly more irritated, held out her palm for the letters and put them in the pocket of her robes. ‘Give me those, I need them for my collection.’

‘Collection?’

‘Yes, Ron, are you determined to repeat everything I say today?’ Harry winced. Hermione was in a bad, bad mood. Understandable, but yikes. It was best he stay out of it, he gathered. ‘My collection,’ Hermione continued, eyes rolling so hard Harry feared they might pop out, ‘as I do _so _enjoy burying any self-esteem I may have ever had under piles and piles of actual bullshit. For me to peruse in the free time I don’t have, just reading sexist and racist hate sent to me by cowardly strangers… Never you mind,’ she insisted, voice thick with bitterness. ‘Do you know what doing nothing about this means? Every time I don’t do something about this stupid hate I get, I allow that damn cycle to continue.’__

__‘What cycle?’ asked Ron of Harry, sotto voce._ _

__Hermione’s voice grew louder, as she stabbed her new egg with her fork, raising her head to direct her comments at the rest of the table._ _

__‘Does anyone on this table even care? Because it affects all of you. Every single one of you. It’s how Shay and Dean can’t hold hands in public and how Harry, the damn Saviour, gets called a Paki when he goes down Diagon, and how Lav was slut-shamed for wanting to kiss a damn boy.’_ _

__Everyone ignored how her voice broke at the mention of Lavender. The general policy around Hogwarts seemed to be turning a blind eye to the war - not that it did anyone any good according to Harry’s interfering Mind Healer, who really was rather irritatingly bang on at times._ _

__‘You didn’t tell me that,’ Ron hissed. ‘Harry, you should have told me that,’ he said, poking Harry in the shoulder._ _

__‘It wasn’t that important,’ Harry hedged, batting Ron’s hand away. ‘I didn’t much care. It was only a passing mention, you know, a while back. It was by a stranger, at least.’ He stuffed a forkful of mushrooms into Ron’s bacon-greased palms, hoping that’d shut him up._ _

__‘But you remember it, don’t you? You remember it,’ Ron said, realisation dawning as he took the fork with a look of appreciation, ‘which means it affected you. In some way. So it’s important to you, and therefore to me. And there shouldn’t have to be any ‘at leasts’, mate.’_ _

__Harry didn’t know what he did to deserve such a solid mate, but he was eternally grateful for everything that he had gone through if only to know that Ron would be there for him. He was doubly glad he had Hermione, who was definitely the strongest person he knew, several times over. Once again, he felt like he could almost chunder, threatening the barrier of apathy he had carefully erected since the incident. The less he thought about it, he decided, the better - which brought him back to his current dilemma. He obviously didn’t want to be complicit in anything, but it just felt so awful of him to complain about what was going on in his life when he had it rather nice, comparatively. He was alive, for starters. He wasn’t getting sexist abuse like Hermione was, and he had mates, good mates at that, and he had warm food on the table, and he –_ _

__‘I can hear your self-flagellation from across the table, Potter [2],’ Malfoy drawled. ‘Stop with this endless self-martyrdom. Granger’s right. If you think you should keep quiet, so will everyone else. Who’s going to be the one to stand up and fight? If you care, even at all, bypass your instinct to care for others at the expense of yourself and realise, that in caring for others, you _are_ caring for yourself [3].’_ _

__Harry blinked, nonplussed, as Malfoy stood up abruptly, all limbs, and left for the DADA room where Minnie McG was to give her announcement. Fucking finally._ _

__‘Alright, then. Why don’t _you_ do something, why don’t you,’ Harry grumbled, snagging a buttered crumpet and an English muffin for the choice and heading for the stairs. Why was one a cake, and one bread, he thought? Perplexing. ‘Telling me what to do, giving motivational pep talks. Malfoy, a Death Eater, telling me what to do. He’s really buying into this absolution business, isn’t he Ron? Who the fuck does he think he is, lording over us about equality and all that shit. He’s the living epitome of a bigot. Right there, in the OED, under synonym for bigot: Draco L. Malfoy, a right cunt.’_ _

__Ron just shrugged, leaning over to take a bite out of Harry’s crumpet just as it was headed for his mouth. ‘I have no idea what you said. But I reckon if he means it, fighting for equality, good for him. If he doesn’t mean it, it’s good for us anyway. Works either way, yeah?’_ _

__‘The thing is,’ Harry grumbled, ‘is that it doesn’t sound like _he_ wants to do any fighting for equality. It sounds like he feels like I should be fighting it, because, that’s what I do. Fight, isn’t it? Fuck that. Fuck that and the horse it rode in on, honestly.’_ _

__‘I think you’re focussing on the wrong part there, mate. And I think Malfoy’s less of a shit now, you know. Deffo less of a shit, actually. There’s no need for you to be so… angry about it, yeah? Channel all irrationality into Quidditch, my Mind Healer said.’ Ron gestures at an invisible list in front of him. ‘Smith’s overtaken Malfoy in the rankings, I think, in terms of general shittiness. It goes Smith, Hopkins, Malfoy, Cornfoot, Parkinson, I think. Malfoy can be quite a riot sometimes, if you laugh at him instead of with him. And Herm wants me to make more of an effort, which you know, I might do. She’s got a point, I think. She and him are sort of friends now, you know?’_ _

__Harry did know, because Hermione would come back from her increasingly regular hour-long chats with Malfoy all pensive and shit, opening and closing her notebook rapidly. She’d refuse to engage in normal-person conversation for a good twenty minutes until she had got over her Malfoy-induced haze [4]. So Harry just grumbled into the remnants of his muffin in response, accidentally smearing flour all over his face._ _

__‘Shit, it’s all over my face, isn’t it?’ Harry had neither the time or the energy to deal with such bullshit on a midweek morning. When Ron grunted in assent, having managed to down a lemonade and a pumpkin juice at the same time, Harry wiped his mouth on his sleeve, only to have his robe go sticky and powdery from the buttery mess. ‘Fuck. Ron, you make excuses for me, I’ve got to clean my entire… self. Save me a seat, yeah?’_ _

__That was how, when Harry entered the DADA room six and a bit minutes later, it was to a general hum of excitement - but not one that normally accompanied death-defying spells. It was more a sign of something controversial, which in his eighteen years of experience, never boded well for his life – hardly conducive to the positive outlook he was trying to cultivate, which had already been impeded by the Muffin Incident of earlier that morning. He slunk into his seat next to Ron, sleeve butter free, crumb free and (mostly) spit free._ _

__‘Mate, what’s going on?’ he asked, nodding at Ron._ _

__‘McGoogles’s announcement, yeah? There’s to be this new class before normal lessons, on a Friday morning I think. Gender something or the other. Dunno what’s that all about, but it’s got Hermione off again. Do you think it has something to do with the shit Mione’s been getting?’_ _

__It was a rather unhelpful answer if there ever was one, but Harry thanked Ron anyway._ _

__He turned round to Tracey Davis behind him, wanting to get some sort of clarification on things, but as always, she ignored him. She raised an eyebrow at his damp sleeve, cocking her head judgementally. He flipped her off, turning back round to Hermione. She just shook her head as he looked beseechingly at her, both in an attempt for her to stop rabbiting on about the merits of the new class he didn’t fucking know about and for her to explain what on earth was going on._ _

__‘Not your keeper, Haz. Do try turn up on time one day, yeah? And dry your sleeve -you’re hardly an incompetent wizard. Magic, remember?’_ _

__And that was how Harry missed the introduction of Gender Studies during his penultimate term at Hogwarts, never to be told why or how it came about [5]._ _

__

[1] Three months prior, a one Draco L. Malfoy had ‘entertained’ the table with a four-minute rant on the correct proportions of water to elderflower in a breakfast cordial. Harry thought it was all very stupid that anyone had cordial for breakfast at all.  
[2] In retrospect, Harry felt stupid for not realising that 1) he was a lot less subtle in his thought process than he thought he was, and 2) Malfoy’s ability to read him spoke volumes.  
[3] It was only a comment made over buttering toast, but Harry had it framed above his desk that he never used.  
[4] Harry and Ron had once stolen her notebook to find out what sort of illicit notes she had been taking in her covert conversations with Malfoy, only to discover that they were single words, such as ‘conserve’ and ‘alive’.  
[5] It became apparent that after Hermione had discussed the hate in the post with Minnie, they decided that elevating the Hogwarts population out of ignorance was the best way forward, as Hogwarts was a repository of education anyway and that everyone went through Hogwarts. A fail-proof plan, indeed.


	3. Chapter 3

After three buttered triangles, a cup and a half of pumpkin juice and a makeshift bowl of cereal (involving Luna’s yak milk, some of Hannah’s Lightning Bolt Loops and Malfoy’s bee pollen[1]), Harry felt ready to take on the unknown that was Gender Studies that Friday morning. Perhaps not ready to take on the world quite yet, but possibly, if those bee pollen of Malfoy did anything that they were purported to do.

Squeezing in an extra lesson before lessons were due to start was always going to be an unpopular move, and even more so because it was Gender Studies. Nobody, except Hermione and Oliver Rivers, a Ravenclaw Harry had seen perhaps a grand total of nine times during his time at Hogwarts, knew what Gender Studies was - let alone what it could possibly entail. And even they had no idea how the Professor would choose to go about it, nor had anyone any clue about who the Professor was. It had been approximately forty hours since the whole Owl post debacle that had catalysed Minnie’s introduction of the lessons, and it was remarkable, they had all agreed, how swiftly McGoons had found someone to teach. That was the end of any and all consensus on the Gender Studies business that had been the headline news for the school paper the Thursday yesterday.

Harry could see factions beginning to rise: those who thought Gender Studies was a complete waste of time, those who thought it was potentially interesting but timed incredibly badly given exams, and thus should be made optional, those who were extremely interested in it – that is, in tearing down everything Gender Studies stood for – and lastly, those who thought it would be an educational experience. That last faction was composed solely of Hermione, Padma and Lily Moon the Hufflepuff. That meant a whole three people, and possibly another half if you counted Ron who was on the fence about the whole matter, were for whatever the Gender Studies lark happened to be. He wondered if he needed to start making them campaign banners for the fight that was bound to happen in about four hours, give or take, knowing the Hogwarts temperament as he did.

Harry wasn’t sure where he stood, if he were being honest. He wanted to find out what it was before forming any concrete opinions, but at the same time he didn’t really have the time, energy or interest to find out what Gender Studies was in the first place. He supposed this apathy was the very thing Hermione was trying to combat, seeing as the day before she had created an extremely large flashing badge after ferreting Malfoy’s badge-making methodology out of her new favourite friend[2]. Pinned to her shirt, it had alternated between ‘if you are neutral in situations of injustice’ and ‘you have chosen the side of the oppressor’.

Harry privately thought ‘Potter Stinks’ had been a tad catchier. But if her goal was to incite debate, then she had done so. The badges had served to provoke Zacharias Smith into loudly recounting Malfoy’s evils, as he had seen the badge as a direct attack on his having fled Hogwarts during the war.

‘See?’ Ron pointed out, now-cold toast in hand. ‘He’s number one git at the mo, I have to say. Not Malfoy, anymore. He’s alright.’ High praise indeed, coming from Ron. He nodded, clapped Ron on the back and promptly went back to people-watching.

But aside from Smith, the majority of the Eighths, used to Hermione protesting about one thing or another, had ignored the badge pinned to her robes. They, like Harry, were also quite used to not having a clue what the implications of what she was saying were.

He had just shrugged her off the night before, when Hermione had offered to make him a badge. ‘Nah, don’t bother. Sure, Herm, I get the message. But the war is over now. We shouldn’t have to fight anymore. I’m just so tired of it, you know?’

Hermione had looked simultaneously exasperated and disappointed. ‘Harry,’ she had said gently, but with steel, ‘the war will never be over. We will always have to keep fighting. If we do nothing, aren’t we letting them win?’

Harry had the feeling she wasn’t talking about the war anymore.

*

When the entirety of the Eighths made their way to Divs, for that was where Gender Studies was purported to be held, they expected a Professor, perhaps. Furniture, maybe, or at least some instruction from McGonagall on the board. There were none of these. Simply an empty room and a smattering of pillows, with a scrap of parchment by one. _‘Come back tomorrow,’_ it read. ‘ _A foot on what gender means to you and your thoughts on sexism. It’s up to you how you choose to tackle it. I look forward to reading your pieces tomorrow.’_

Everything was rather vague, which was expected, he supposed, for something that had only come to fruition in the last two days - but unusual, given that McGonagall was McGonagall. After everyone had a good look at the parchment, ensuring it wasn’t a fraud, there was silence. No one had anything to say. No one knew what to say, for that matter, but it wasn’t for a lack of trying. As they had entered the room, there were a few blustering comments made about how stupid the lesson was going to be and what a waste of time it was, but now that they didn’t have a lesson, everyone seemed to be wrong-footed. Harry looked around, trying to see if anyone knew what to do next. People just looked straight back at him, expectantly. He scowled. He certainly wasn’t the leader everyone wanted him to be, not in this. Hermione was. It was Hermione’s idea in the first place –

‘So do you think they meant a foot on both gender and sexism combined, or a foot on each?’

Hermione’s comment set everybody off, the classroom growing more agitated all the while.

‘A foot by _tomorrow_? I don’t have time for this bullshit. If the Professor’s not going to give me the respect I deserve by showing up, why should I have to write anything?’ A typical Parkinson comment if there ever was one.

Ron stuffed his hands into his robe pockets with some vehemence. ‘I have absolutely no clue what gender means to me. What the fuck am I supposed to say? A whole foot, as well?’ Harry privately agreed with Ron, but judging by Hermione’s cold glare, he was best off not saying anything.

‘Sexism doesn’t exist, you know,’ said Wayne Hopkins, punctuating that point with a nod. There were a few murmurs of agreement from the lads behind him, some irrelevant Ravens and Hufflepuffs that Harry hadn’t particularly ever made the effort to get to know.

‘Well, I guess that’s something you could write about, then. That counts under ‘your thoughts on sexism’, right?’ If Zabini, ever the opportunist, thought it was alright to write on how your topic didn’t exist, perhaps it could be done.

‘What does it mean ‘it’s up to you how you tackle it’? Like what perspective I have? I bloody hope it’s up to me how I see things. That’s the thing about this pseudo-liberal shit, you know, it isn’t liberal at all. They don’t take into account your opinions if they’re the wrong ones, just like any other fucking worldview.’ An interesting comment from Stephen Cornfoot. Classic Cornfoot, always trying to wrongfoot everyone.

Hannah piped up from the back as she tied her hair, stretching up to try peek at the instructions past the various large heads of Hopkins’ group. ‘Maybe it means that you can write a poem, or something. That it doesn’t have to be an essay.’

MacDougal rolled her eyes, popping her strawberry Bubbaloo extra obnoxiously. ‘Good shout, mate. Do you think bullet points count?’ Everybody snickered.

‘Yeah mate, large bullet points and double spacing. You’d only have to say, like, four things for you to do a foot,’ Justin added.

‘I can’t believe it. Tomorrow’s the fucking weekend. I should be sleeping in, having fun, acting like the fucking teenager I am, instead of doing an essay, or bullshit poem, or story or whatever. I have two essays I still have to do for later, let alone another for tomorrow.’ It seemed that Tracey Davis like the word ‘fuck’. So did Harry - there was no judgement there.

‘Hey, a foot’s not that long, though. We did more for OWLs,’ Parvati said.

‘It’s the principle of the matter, Pav. I shouldn’t be doing shit on a Friday night,’ Seamus replied, grotty bit of toast from breakfast in hand.

‘Do you think they’ll be marked?’ Terry asked, ‘like a real subject?’

‘Honestly, do you give a shit, though? A single shit?’ A classic Corner response. Harry sometimes wondered why he was sorted Ravenclaw, only to have Hermione’s lecture on House stereotypes replayed in his mind.

‘Why is nobody talking about the fact that it says ‘tomorrow’? As in we have another one of these extra compulsory lessons _tomorrow_ ,’ Midgen said, ‘on a bloody fucking Saturday, as well. I have better things to be doing alright.’

‘I actually do not have the time to be doing this,’ Felicity Worthington added, snooty as ever. ‘My Mind Healer said I should be trying to ‘reduce the stressors around me’, not add another fucking subject!’

Harry took one last look at the instructions, copying them down onto some parchment he found in the pocket of his school robes, before slipping out to the library. He didn’t have enough energy to be around the rest of his year this early in the morning, despite their only being twenty-six that came back for Eighth Year. Neville’s snores had kept him up till a good one in the morning, his Silencing Charms failing no matter what he’d tried. There were a good forty minutes before his first lesson as well, and he was determined to make use of them. He could probably finish the foot in that time, provided he wasn’t distracted. Somehow he just had to muster up enough thoughts to fill that foot, as he felt that snitching off Mione wouldn’t quite cut the mustard. Once he was done, he could relax until the DADA practicals on Monday. Yes, he thought to himself. A solid plan indeed.

*

Naturally, because Harry couldn’t plan for shite and was a big fucking liar, Saturday rolled around without him having done his foot. Friday had been rather unfortunate for Harry’s concentration, actually, as Malfoy had chosen that very day to wear Sophie Roper’s scarf. Roper was the third and last of the Slytherin girls to return to Hogwarts alongside Parkinson and Davis, and before the Scarf Incident, Roper had only been registered in Harry’s mind as thoroughly nice but totally irrev. However, Harry was now only too acutely aware of her. Her and her very nice but slightly off-centred nose, her very nice hair and her very nice eyes, which were bright and eye-looking.

Maybe this was why he was a disaster with girls.

‘She looks nice,’ he said feebly, stabbing his poached egg over his toast. ‘Doesn’t she, Ron? Do you think Malfoy’s noticed?’

Ron gave him a Look as he mopped up a bit of yolk off Harry’s plate with some soldiers he’d cut up. ‘Maybe this is why things never took off with anyone after you and Ginny stopped seeing one another. Because no one is ever quantified until they’ve come into contact with Malfoy.’

Harry chose to ignore him, him and wherever he got the word ‘quantified’ from. Harry tried to avoid thinking of Malfoy as much as possible, but this was made particularly difficult as Malfoy seemed to egg him on every time he resolved to ignore him. This was done through obvious means, such as putting his hair up into a bun, _with his wand_ [3],and wearing pink silk scarves, which was obviously to egg Harry on. What else could it be for?

‘He’s wearing Roper’s scarf,’ he hissed. ‘It’s pink silk, and everyone knows he exclusively wears cashmere scarves.’

This time, Ron gave Hermione a Look, mouthing ‘everyone?’. It was the sort of Look that heralded an intervention. With this in mind, Harry decided to leave out the bit where he waxed poetic about throats and collarbones. He didn’t quite want to end up in the loony bin.

‘I _think_ ,’ Hermione said with a squint across the Eighth Years’ table, ‘it’s actually a cravat. But maybe he likes pink, and that’s actually his scarf. Don’t stereotype. Did you know, it used to be a masculine colour, actually. As pink’s a derivative of red and all, a delineated masculine colour.’ A typical Hermione contribution to the conversation; Harry loved her for it. 

‘Roper was wearing it the other day.’

‘Maybe it was Draco’s scarf that she borrowed?’ Hermione noted.

‘I can’t believe I’m having a conversation about a pink silk scarf,’ Ron mumbled. ‘What has post-war life come to, Merlin.’

Hermione swatted Ron. ‘We’re alive, you tit. Now shut up and let Harry bask in having a crush.’

‘I do not _have a crush_ ,’ Harry grumbled. ‘I am making observations. Good observations, about scarves. And about how clothes have no gender constraints, and how colour doesn’t either.’

‘Oh really,’ Hermione said in an arched tone. ‘Go on then. Pray tell.’

‘Ah. Er. Roper wore a pink silk scarf,’ Harry said, tugging on his sleeve slightly self-consciously, albeit with a fair amount of indignation. ‘Malfoy is wearing that same pink silk scarf. Pink silk has been worn by both Roper and Malfoy. No one has imploded yet. The - what’s the word you said yesterday? Patriar - the patriachy is crumbling, one step at a time,’ gesticulating wildly, ‘see? A brilliant addition to my foot.’

Hermione rolled her eyes. ‘Good save there Harry. So you’ve done it then?’

Ron jabbed her with his elbow. ‘Ye of little faith.’

‘She’s right, Ron. I, er, tried. It’s at two thirds of a foot. Three quarters of a foot? Maybe? I don’t know, I just don’t think it’s at a foot yet. I didn’t have much to say.’

‘Which is to say,’ Hermione said ‘you got distracted by Draco’s scarf-cravat thing, and you stared at him obsessively for twenty minutes in the library yesterday under the pretence of ‘research’.’

It’s the same as the colour he goes when he blushes, Harry wanted to say. But, he suspected, it would simply come off as extremely stalkerish and creepy instead of as the good observation that it was, so he stayed quiet. Jamming his hands into his hoodie, he continued walking with Hermione and Ron to their first proper Gender Studies lesson. Hopefully. He wasn’t sure if he could take another day of Hermione being disappointed at a lack of Professor, but did it really have to be on a Saturday? What a rave of a weekend it was to be, he thought. Lessons. At least they didn’t need to be in uniform.

It seemed that the rest of the year felt the same, as when they got to Divs they were greeted with a sorry sight – twenty or so Eighths sitting on the floor with various shades of boredom painted on their faces. In front of each of them was a short reading, which Harry noticed Hannah and Padma had marked with half-hearted scribbles in the margin, a few tentative highlights as well. Harry, perpetually unsure of what to do next, simply took a proffered reading from the Professor’s desk, slunk to meet Dean and Parvati at the back and settled onto one of the tasselled pillows, extract in hand.

The text was fairly short but full of long words he couldn’t be arsed to read, and seemed to be a bit archaic. His eyes were immediately drawn to the copious use of the term ‘sex’, which made him dearly hope Minnie McG wasn’t to be their Professor. He wasn’t sure he could stomach an hour of the Head repeatedly using the word ‘sex’. Call him immature, but some boundaries didn’t need to be broken. And with that thought in mind, a voice came from the back of the Divs classroom.

‘Apologies, Eighth Years, for having scheduled the lesson for a Saturday.’

The whole class whipped round on their fluffy pillows, tassels flying, to be confronted by a portrait of Rowena Ravenclaw. ‘What the actual fuck,’ Dean mouthed at him. Harry would honestly have liked to have said that he was more surprised, but at this point, a portrait teaching him Gender Studies would’ve been one of the more conventional happenings at Hogwarts. What _had_ his life come to? He needed a fucking cuppa, that’s what. With two teabags, maybe. Three, even.

‘You see, I simply didn’t want to wait another week. You know how it is,’ Ravenclaw - Rowena - Professor Ravenclaw? - the Grey Lady’s mum said, Scottish brogue thick as ever.

Parvati nudged Harry. ‘Nah we don’t,’ she whispered, ‘but alright, Rowena.’

Harry could smell the remnants of Pav’s smoking session on her brightly coloured windbreaker, mingled with her Spice Girls Impulse. ‘Be a bit more obvious, mate,’ he warned, sniffing purposefully.

‘Sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Couldn’t sleep. Nightmares. So Midge and Maccy D and I went to smoke this morning, we thought we’d be alright, given that it was a Saturday. Completely forgot about this whole extra lesson lark.’

‘McDonald’s?’ Harry asked, confused.

‘Hmm? No, MacDougal. Morag MacDougal?’

‘Right, right. And who’re you calling a midget?’

‘Get with it, Harry,’ she teased, shoving him off his slippery cushion. ‘Midge, not midget. Eloise Midgen, who else? There aren’t even that many of us left.’

‘Who else indeed,’ he groaned, stretching over Corner’s large-arse head to find Midgen.

‘I may be a portrait,’ Rowena intoned, ‘but I still can see and hear. Desist with that chatter. After a millennium of waiting, we finally have something at Hogwarts to address the gender imbalance that has plagued our society. If you see fit to squander our lesson time, you can take it up with the Headmistress. Which I notice some of you must have decided to do, as not all of you are in attendance.’

Harry was strongly reminded of every iteration of stern Hogwarts Professor rolled into one. Perhaps she had Minnie’s eyebrows, and Snape’s drawn out pauses, and Binns’s… ephemerality.

‘Do not think I have forgotten about your task. I shall collect them in at the end of the lesson. For now, I would like for you all to take that extract to hand, please, and we shall begin to read. Mister Finnegan, if you would so kindly begin, stopping after every sentence. Until the next paragraph, if you please.’

Merlin, her voice was mind-numbing. Rolling his eyes at Pav, Harry snatched his parchment up. Blah blah blah society, blah blah blah childhood.

‘My own sex,’ Seamus read, not entirely sarcastically, ‘I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.’

‘Would anyone like to say something about that?’ Rowena asked, cutting in. ‘What do you think the author refers to?’

Lily Moon, a tiny Hufflepuff swamped in a giant yellow mohair jumper, with gold hoops possibly larger than her face spoke up. ‘That women are like, tied to men and that. That we don’t have a separate identity, and we’re legally and socially dependent on men. You know, what with marriage and stuff, and changing your name, and this fucki- damn expectation that you’re to marry and forge your career as a glorious housewife. La di da, ‘n that.’

Harry was no expert, but he thought he detected several shades of bitterness in that. And they were onto swearing already?

Moon wasn’t done, it seemed. Harry wondered if he could ask to borrow her jumper sometime, or if that’d be weird. ‘It’s as the author says, third line down. And the fact that it’s still applicable, literally even today, we’re in the 90s now - Merlin!’ Pav tapped the line Moon was referring to with the end of her quill for Harry. He bit his lip, looking down to read the extract.

_‘They spend many of the first years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments: meanwhile, strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves, the only way women can rise in the world—by marriage. And this desire making mere animals of them’._

‘Fucking dehumanising,’ Padma agreed from somewhere in the room.

She worried the fabric of her sleeve, pulling at the threads. As Harry watched her do it, he felt conscious of his doing the same. Tugging down at the sleeves of his Starter jacket, he sat on his hands to prevent any more fiddling. It was a bad look - guaranteed to garner curious looks, a definite thing to avoid these days.

‘So,’ the portrait asked, ‘what think you all of what Mistress Moon has to say?’

‘No offence, Lily, but you’re like, completely wrong,’ said Hopkins. It was only to be expected, really, but Harry saw Pav twitch out of the corner of his eye. He hoped she wasn’t going to throw a cushion at him. Too much drama. ‘Society doesn’t treat women like that. It’s a huge, huge lie.’

‘Do excuse me here for pointing out the obvious, Hopkins, but do you really know what it’s like to be a girl today?’ A fair enough point from Hermione, who looked so close to walking out. _So_ close.

Hopkins rolled his eyes. ‘It’s just girls complaining, ‘cause they’re weaker and lazier and can’t be arsed to work as hard as men.’ A controversial opinion from Mister Bucket Hat himself. Hopkins tugged his Bez over his forehead in an uncompromising show of dominance. _So there_ , his hat seemed to say. You can’t possibly find fault with that.

Naturally, somebody did. It was Oliver Rivers, he of the Gender Studies foreknowledge. Harry thought his ensemble of rayon shirt and carpenter jeans left much to be desired, but nevertheless there was a possibility, perhaps a slightly indistinct one, that he would say something that Hopkins would take seriously.

‘I mean, Hopkins, if you read the rest of the thing, you’d find that women _were_ treated differently. You can’t deny that.’

‘Yeah, but not now,’ Hopkins rejoined. ‘That’s my point. Women can vote now, and all that. They’re equal now - there’s nothing more for them to want.’

‘But we are treated differently,’ Moon said, voice beginning to rise. ‘Our names are tied to yours, we’re expected to get married and pop out children like it’s our life goal, we’re nothing beyond wife or mother-’

‘That’s complete bullshit and you know it. Literally no one thinks that. You can get a job, have a career, be a mother, it’s your choice!’ Hopkins was yelling so much that his hat began to twitch. Harry wondered if it would fall off from his vehement anger at women championing for equality. _There lies Hopkins’ Bez hat, sacrificed in an act of misogyny._

‘Yes, but what provision is there for career mums? Think about it, Hopkins.’ Harry thought Moon made a good point there. He had no idea about career mums, but he wasn’t expected to know, nor did he have to. He didn’t have to worry about that, fairs. That _was_ a shout from Moon, then. ‘And being pressured by family to go either way, and having to juggle that, and losing your identity when you marry and have children, and-’

‘She’s delusional, lads. That doesn’t exist. Literally doesn’t. And you get maternity leave, and there are creches in the Ministry, and-’ Harry also didn’t know that. He wondered whether the Professor would notice if he just slept. Not that he didn’t care about whatever Moon and Hopkins were debating, but he didn’t have much to contribute. Maybe he could pull his hood over his eyes…

‘Women have to hide their wedding rings to get hired! Because employers are so afraid that they’ll go off and have a child and they’d have to pay them maternity pay when they aren’t there!’

How, Harry wondered, the fuck did these people all know so much? He paused, then realised that not everyone grew up in a cupboard and had a megalomaniac after them. Right. Is this what normal people talked about in their free time? Were they all there, researching policy and crawling through textbooks and _Prophet_ clippings? He took another look at Oliver Rivers, and nodded. Yeah probably, knowing of him as he did.

‘But let’s be real, when you’re off taking care of your kid, yeah, you’re not actually working,’ Hopkins insisted. ‘You aren’t contributing, so why should you get paid? Logically speaking, it makes no sense. You have to admit it,’ he concluded, folding his hands over his stomach self-satisfactorily.

‘Because,’ Hannah interrupted, ‘people aren’t just there to work and make more money for the company! Employers have to be a bit more humane!’

‘Don’t have children, then,’ Hopkins dared. Now _that_ raised a few eyebrows and murmurs. As far as Harry knew, having children was more of a social obligation in the wizarding world than the Muggle because of the rapid depletion in their tiny community, especially after the war.

‘My point,’ Moon continued, unfazed, ‘is that it’s not fair that when a couple decides to have children, the onus of that decision, and all the repercussions, are pushed onto us because we’re the ones with wombs!’

After a moment of silence, Rowena Ravenclaw decided to diffuse the tension. ‘And Mister Finnegan, if you could continue with the extract.’

Seamus was a bit more tentative about it this time, having picked up on the tension. ‘I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists—I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them, that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.’

There was a pause as the Professor waited for everyone to follow. Harry thought there were too many long words and the author needed to learn of the concept of a full stop.

‘Well, I have to say, that was a long sentence. Perhaps this mysterious author could learn a thing or two about commas, eh?’ Nobody laughed at Seamus’ attempt at levity, unsure of how everyone else would take it.

The portrait seemed to take the hint. ‘If you could read the rest of the extract on your own, please. Do take notes as you go along, for we will proceed to discuss when you are finished.’

Ten minutes later, Harry’s piece of parchment was just as clean as it was when he had started. Parvati had made a few scribbles here and there and Dean had highlighted a line rather viciously, but he had nothing. He had heard the snaps of a few quills around him, proof that some, at least, were engaged with the subject, but beyond superficially absorbing what it said, he couldn’t quite empathise. The words were too archaic, and if he stared at it long enough, they began to blur together. Definitely not something he learnt in primary school. Harry agreed with Seamus, the writer could use a tip or two on formatting. Perhaps a liberal dashing of commas, on top of better spacing. _That_ they had learnt at primary school.

He was shaken from his musings on appropriate formatting by a rather obnoxiously loud comment from Terry Boot. ‘I’m not saying that women have it all fine and dandy now, but don’t you think it’s a tad far to compare them to slaves? When the author writes, ‘dismissing then those pretty feminine phrases, which the men condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence’, over here. I just think that’s a bit far. Not all men are like that. I know I’m not.’

There were a few unkind sniggers from his fellow Ravens that Harry figured had something to do with the girl he used to shag, or was shagging[4], or something. Or the lack of shagging, perhaps.

‘A noble thought indeed, Mister Boot. But consider what the author goes on to say about the mindless indoctrination of women, and the second extract that Mister Finnegan read to us. The author notes the connection between the feminine and the weak in that extract, how the patriarchy has been keen to equate that which is epitomised as feminine with weakness, but also perpetuated that cycle in the opposite manner. Thoughts?’

Harry did not get what she was trying to say. This was mostly because Rowena seemed to be talking in circles much like the mysterious author. So he chalked it up to being some eighteenth century garble he had no chance of getting, given his shitty primary education being followed up by Hogwarts, which involved many deathly incidents and the provision of some magical education[5], but hardly any literature. Thankfully, nobody seemed to have any opinion on whatever the Professor just said. Perhaps because nobody understood it, but Harry was glad for it. The faster he could leave, the faster he could get to something interesting. Like a nice Saturday nap to supplant the lie-in he had been hoping for, instead of watching this class like it was through a screen, like in one of Dudley’s films, maybe-

‘Harry,’ came a hiss from behind him, ‘pay attention. Stop daydreaming. I know you couldn’t care less about the status of women’s equality, but if you could at least pretend to not be doodling a dick?’

Harry thought that was a bit far. He did care. Some of his best friends were women. And just because he didn’t find getting involved in political debates on this topic particularly stirring, didn’t mean he was apathetic. And he wasn’t - oh, alright, he was drawing a dick. But it didn’t mean anything. Hermione should just leave well enough alone. Harry was fine[6]. He was fine, and not a sexist. The whole palaver was just a bit of bother, that’s all. When he looked up from his favourite spot on the floor, Padma was talking.

‘It really is true, as I’ve said, when the author writes ‘why are women to be thus bred up with a desire of conquest?’ You never really know if someone is approaching you for sex or because they’re actually interested in you.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t demonise us like that,’ Corner said. ‘It’s like Terry said. We’re not all like that, I’ll have you know.’

‘But that’s exactly what I’m trying to say, Corner,’ Padma huffed. ‘This discussion isn’t actually about you, you know. Hello? Stop trying to victimise yourself and make it all about you.’

‘Yes,’ Hermione agreed, ‘this is exactly the phallocentric narrative we have to combat.’

The fuck did phallocentric mean? Corner rolled his eyes. Harry didn’t think Corner knew what Hermione was on about either. ‘You’re just saying that because you can’t get a guy to shag you and you hate men.’

Padma sputtered, her bell sleeves nearly hitting Worthington in the face as she spun round to face Corner. Harry thought it would be best if he and the other fifteen or so people not contributing left.

‘Exactly my point!’ Padma cried, tone insistent as she waved her hands about. ‘Have you even been reading the same thing as I have? It says, right here, look - ‘must they be taught always to be pleasing?’ Our existence isn’t to be validated only if we happen to be sexually appealing to somebody.’

Padma took a breath as Roper placed a calming hand on her arm. ‘And Merlin, Corner, I don’t hate all men. The patriarchy is something so different from men. And we’ve all contributed to it, anyhow, in some form. Like stereotyping people, or something. We’ve all bought into it - it’s a fuc-damn system I’m mad at, not you. Except if you keep going on like you are... So stop making it all about you! And given how desperate you’ve been this last year, I’d say I could get a man to shag me!’

A cheeky snigger or two popped up at that. ‘Oi oi, Corner!’ came a shout from somewhere near the front. Seamus, maybe?

‘Yeah, but women like that sort of thing,’ Cornfoot interjected. ‘A cheeky compliment or two. They’re always spending so much time on their hair, looking at their magazines-’

‘Yeah, because we’ve been told to see that as the ultimate form of what, validation? And what’s my liking of mags got to do with whether or not I can be treated like a legitimate being? I can fight in a war and giggle over chainmail tops, it doesn’t make me any less of a fighter. If you want to go at it, I’m free later, yeah? Just give me five so I can change into my chainmail top, how ‘bout that?’ Harry had to admit, Padma was rather good at fighting.

Worthington, that Gryffindor who Harry could never remember the name of, nodded. ‘It’s how we’re like, reduced or limited to that - to only like, liking guys, and doing everything for guys. ‘What can such delusive flattery lead to, but vanity and folly?’ This author, whoever they are, has it right. It’s a cycle - girls think that’s all that they can do, so that’s all that they aspire to be. Self-fulfilling prophecy and all that. And, Cornfoot, I’d advise you to read that paragraph here again,’ she said, tapping the bottom of the parchment.

Harry looked back down and read, adding to his doodle of Hagrid’s beard. _‘The man who can be contented to live with a pretty and useful companion who has no mind has lost in voluptuous gratifications a taste for more refined pleasures; he has never felt the calm and refreshing satisfaction… of being loved by someone who could understand him.’_ Fair, he thought.

Ravenclaw spoke again. ‘The author is Mary Wollstonecraft, a dear friend of mine during her time here at Hogwarts. She died not so long ago, only in the 1700s. A philosopher, writer, and lovely person, Mary was. Her tract was very much intended to point out that women were not born naturally inferior, it is the lack of equal treatment by society that has conditioned women to behave in a certain manner. Should we all be treated rationally, the patriarchy would not be the oppressive system it is today. As Mary herself wrote, ‘there must be more equality established in society, or morality will never gain ground’.’

‘Oh,’ Hermione’s face lit up, ‘Mary Shelley’s her daughter, isn’t she?’ Harry was glad for anything that made Herm smile. Merlin knows she got enough shit these days.

‘Yes, Mistress Granger, you may know her daughter as Mary Shelley, the author of _Frankenstein_. A seminal novel in the Muggle world and wizarding alike, although for perhaps different reasons [7]. Think of that what you will, but I hope you have gathered something along those lines from the extracts, Messers and Misses? Perhaps I shall be so bold as to ascribe the extract as ‘proto-feminist’ in content. You should find the preparatory reading for next Friday’s lesson on the desk. You are all dismissed.’

As they struggled off their cushions, Harry took a quick scan of the room. Smith had skived, he’d clearly decided to bung off to do something else - or perhaps make his views even more apparent. Ron and Neville had spent their time alternating by looking concerned and enraged, but staying silent for Hermione’s sake, with the Slytherin girls packing together and huddling by a bunch of pillows at the back, working on their Transfig essays. By the window, MacDougal had spent her time chewing her gum very loudly, fiddling with her knee-highs as she used a Sticking Charm to repeatedly fasten together her tartan kilt, as it kept popping back open. Next to her was Malfoy, who had sat there in complete silence, merely watching the goings-on with curiosity. Harry watched Malfoy fold up the extract and pop it into the pocket of his trousers, gathering his quills as he took Parkinson’s proffered arm and headed out the room.

Malfoy had sat there in _silence_ , he realised, swivelling slowly on his cushion. Malfoy had uttered exactly nought words since the class had begun. Nought. Harry felt a revelation coming on. Malfoy was probably a complete bigot in his free time, and only a minor one in company, Harry decided. Clearly, he was up to something. And Harry was on the case.

 

[1] This was rather ungraciously offered by Malfoy after seeing the ‘entirely unpalatable’ contents of Harry’s bowl.  
[2] Harry was not at all bitter about that.  
[3] The very same wand Harry used during the war. At this point, it was simply rude.  
[4] Or lack thereof.  
[5] His magical education was rather dubious in itself and was far from rigorous. His DADA knowledge mostly came from self-defence in real scenarios, given the rather rapid turnover of teachers and lack of continuity.  
[6] In retrospect, this vehemency was telling.  
[7] This was the first Harry had heard of _Frankenstein_ in the wizarding world. He later learned that it was considered a cautionary moral tale, told to small children to prevent them from aspiring to be too big for their boots.


	4. Chapter 4

As always, the new week started with dreams of Malfoy and breakfast. That night previous had featured a particularly odd dream: Malfoy sitting on a throne of pillows in the Divination classroom and cackling loudly as he threw Hermione’s badges around. Made a change from the flashbacks and nightmares, Harry supposed, but dreaming of Malfoy wasn’t much of an improvement. Harry looked over to watch Malfoy completing the second phase of his breakfast routine, cocking his head as he tried to decide between strawberry and champagne jam on toast or a slab of avo on rye. Occasionally, Harry knew, he would discuss the merits of focaccia for breakfast with Zabini and Padma, but Harry had calculated that the odds were 9:2 in favour of jam. Perhaps, Harry thought, his morning brain beginning to stir, the alcoholic spread was responsible for his obviously sexist attitude that had been the root of yesterday’s silence. Perhaps he should try some for research purposes, to embody the Malfoy spirit - but only to a degree, of course. Perhaps -

‘Oi, Malfoy!’

‘There’s no need to yell, Potter. I’m a foot away from your face,’ Malfoy said. The rest of the table looked round at them - it was a bit of a rare occurrence for the two of them to speak.

‘I need your jam,’ Harry insisted. He realised that came off a bit weird, but it was too late. He’d just have to commit to the jam, he supposed.

‘Need, do you?’ Malfoy’s face was a sight to behold - a confusing mix of distaste, wonder and irritation.

‘Ah, yes,’ Harry stammered. ‘Need. Absolutely imperative, this.’

Malfoy simply rolled his eyes and passed his glass jar over the table, picking up his toast in his left hand, poised to bite. Harry grabbed both the toast and the jar from him, squishing Malfoy’s toast a bit to dip a corner into the jar before biting.

‘Oi, get your own toast!’ Malfoy scolded, clearly put out.

Harry could feel Hermione frowning beside him. ‘That’s a bit brutish of you Harry, to dip straight into the pot. What do you need the jam so desperately for, anyway?’

Harry rolled his eyes and returned the half-eaten toast and jam to Malfoy. 

‘Ta, mate. Tastes like crap, by the way.’

Clearly, Harry surmised after eating Malfoy’s brekkie, Malfoy was a raving alco who was so desperate for alcohol at school that he had resolved to getting his daily fix through condiments, instead of smuggled crates of Odgen’s like everybody else. He was probably fed teaspoons of Prosecco as a child. Malfoy’d probably get on great with fizzy drinks, Harry thought, given his propensity for fizziness and fruit in the morning. However, it was testimony to Malfoy’s newfound non-dickishness that he hadn’t erupted into some sort of fit at Harry stealing his breakfast, and that they could coexist at the table without resorting to fisticuffs. Didn’t mean he couldn’t be a bigot, though. The outcome of the war couldn’t have changed _that_ much.

Malfoy eyed him suspiciously. ‘What now, Potter?’

Harry rolled his eyes. ‘Envisioning an elf drip feeding you Prosecco as a baby, that’s all.’

Malfoy rolled his eyes, the insufferable twit he was. ‘Don’t be foolish. It was peach Bellini, of course.’

Was he actually serious? Bloody hell.

‘-with real peach in it. Can you honestly believe people drink it without the bits in it? I find it completely odd that England doesn’t cater for that. That reminds me,’ he said, like anyone actually gave a shit, ‘I really need to be going back to Italy for some of that Bellini that we had in Tuscany. Blaise?’ Malfoy turned to the man in question, placing his hand on Blaise’s knee absentmindedly as he nattered on about a possible Slytherin leavers’ trip. Harry didn’t quite think it’d count as a Slytherin trip, given how depleted the house was.

Ron snorted. ‘Can you believe, indeed,’ offering Harry a taste of his newest marmalade concoction. ‘What you thinking? I think it needs more rind, don’t you?’

‘Mmm,’ Harry agreed noncommittally, not wanting to tell Ron no amount of rind would save Ron’s disaster of a marmalade. He didn’t feel happier, at any rate. At his Mind Healer’s suggestion, Ron had taken up magical jam-making, his ‘signature’ marmalade being a classic Seville, with Alihotsy mixed with the rind to give the person unfortunate enough to have some just enough hysteria in the morning to make one feel rather cheery. Or that was the objective, anyway - inspired by Ron’s rather lackluster breakfasts, so to speak, over the summer as his family had begun to grieve Fred. Harry had only felt just honest enough to tell him never to attempt the grapefruit jam again. He quite liked his tongue the way it was, thanks.

Seeking some distraction, he sought some topic of conversation. ‘Malfoy’s a bigot, eh?’

Ron gave him another Look, spreading more of his so-called marmalade on his toast. ‘Bit heavy for breakfast, don’t you think? Sacrosanct, brekkie is. And nah, not particularly. Isn’t exactly the paragon of equality, but he’s off that blood purity shit now, isn’t he? Think he’s trying. The convos with Herm, remember?’

There was a pause as Ron chewed, pouring himself some pumpkin juice to accompany the revolting taste of citrus peel. ‘I swear we had this conversation last week. This time last week, actually - yeah, Haz, didn’t we?’

To Harry’s great relief, Ron didn’t push it any further. Malfoy, the twat, was still rabbiting on about his summer plans. Harry didn’t let that alarm him. He really, really didn’t. Suffocating his panic at the thought of the end of another year with more and more mundanity, he tried to fixate on something else. It wasn’t fair, he thought. He’d lost his childhood and now this attempt to recapture what he’d lost - not that it was going very well, with their year depleted and traumatised, shells of who they used to be - was hurtling past them faster than the new Nimbus.

Breakfast, he thought. Breakfast was his only anchor in this fucking nightmare of a year. If a nightmare was a never-ending stretch of grey - the rest of his friends moving on and up in the world, waving him goodbye as he stood stuck - stuck where he was, surrounded by corpses. Of Fred - Fred and Dobby and Tonks, Sirius and Dumbledore and Cedric. Fuck, he thought, shaking his head of his thoughts. His dream of Malfoy and his many cushions was definitely better - what he would give for more of those, over the flashbacks that’d come to him when the darkness was quiet, even the soft ticking of Dean’s broken alarm clock silent. It wouldn’t do to have another breakdown, he thought. Not at breakfast. Ron was right - breakfast was sacrosanct.

Seeking some peace and quiet, or as much as you could get at Hogwarts, Harry made his way to the Gryffindor common room. Spotting Hermione lounging by the fire, with next week’s reading in one hand and English Breakfast in the other, he moseyed over to her, collapsing onto her legs that were propped up on an ottoman. A distraction, he thought. That might help.

‘I’ve converted him to the cause,’ he announced, sneaking her cup from her and taking a slurpy self-satisfied sip. This was going to fun, he thought, grinning slightly.

‘You can keep that,’ Hermione said, waving her hand at the tea. ‘Pavs and I have had two pots between us already, and it’s not even decaf. Honestly - why is tea either too weak or so bitter the spoon could stand on its own? And converted who to what cause, exactly?’ Hermione was always a tad wary at anything Harry announced.

 

‘The MIACBOC Committee,’ Harry improvised, ‘currently comprised of Ron and yours truly.’ He ran his fingers through his mane for dramatic effect. Not that he normally did that, but he hoped he could convey some sense of agitation - or something. There was a reason he’d ruled out a career in the arts so many long years ago.

‘...Harry, I’m afraid I don’t speak Parseltongue,’ Hermione said, her ever-weary brow creasing. Harry would’ve felt a little sorry for her, had this not been so entertaining. The perfect distraction, he thought, from an impending existential crisis.

‘The _Malfoy is a complete bigot, comma, of course!_ The exclamation’s optional, actually, but I thought it added a nice touch.’ He congratulated himself on an acronym job well done. MIACBOC didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’d have to do.

Hermione stared at him, horrified. ‘And you said S.P.E.W. was bad? Christ, Harry, it sounds like some sort of parody rip-off of YMCA. Will I need to get you a hat and some flares? And plus, are we back to stalking again? Do we need a lecture on appropriate personal boundaries?’

Harry pretended to shrug her off - she really was getting perfectly worked up about this. The YMCA was a good one, though. He wished he still had access to a Pensieve to show this to Ron. ‘Admittedly, the acronym needs work. Would getting rid of the comma help? But, don’t distract me - there is a clear purpose to the MIACBOC Committee. Malfoy is a bigot of the highest order. We have to out him,’ he said, thumping his fist on his thigh for good measure.

‘Out him as _what_ , Harry? And I notice you’re not saying the same of Hopkins or Smith,’ Hermione said, putting her reading down - carefully - on her lap. Success, Harry thought. Step one complete.

‘That’s because everyone knows they’re bigots. They’ve literally said so at some point. Malfoy’s pretending, you see, to be this paragon of redemption and virtue,’ he said, stealing Ron’s phrase from earlier, ‘who-’

‘Harry, I’m really not sure he is -’

Harry cut in. ‘And I’m sick of everyone buying into this nonsense, of Malfoy being decent, and trying, and all that rot.’ He did really mean that, though. That bit wasn’t made-up.

‘You seemed to be on civil terms last term. You partnered with Draco in Potions that once, and nobody perished of some rare hex or excessive melodrama. You said he was tolerable, even,’ Hermione said, starting to look rather concerned. Rather too concerned, Harry felt. ‘Ron’s getting matey with him, and you know we’re friends, now. And you don’t seem to have a problem with him at meals and such. You do know you can choose to _not sit opposite_ him every mealtime, and that’d be fine? What’s that about, anyway? You do seem to go out of your way to engage with him, despite professing to still dislike him and choosing to ignore everyone else.’

Harry chose to ignore everything Hermione said, knowing full well it was all true. ‘Well, after the lesson on Saturday, I think it’s safe to say I have a legitimate reason for finding Malfoy an issue. Hmm? Or don’t you think Gender Studies matters?’ The conversation had veered into uncomfortable truth, now. He wasn’t sure if this had been his intention. 

‘Harry, he didn’t do anything on Saturday. The worst thing he did was loudly discuss his displeasure at the lack of provision of sparkling water over lunch. And possibly also the amount of creamer he put in his Earl Grey, but we don’t talk about that. The fact that it’s a dessert tea gives him no right to blaspheme in such a manner, and I think that should be fairly obvious.’

‘Exactly, Mione. It’s what he didn’t do, not what he did. He didn’t speak, didn’t you notice?’ Frustrated, he tried to appeal to the activist side of her by looking as pathetic as possible.

‘Neither did you,’ Hermione said with a strong glare, ‘if we’re not counting your hush-hush with Pavs.’ Seemed like the pathetic look had stopped working, ever since she took up with Ron.

There was a pause as Harry digested that. ‘But I’m not the problem here.’

‘Aren’t you?’ Fuck, Harry thought. He’d come here to get away from dodgy thoughts and questions, not be faced with more. He stored that thought away for later. But he wasn’t, he swore to himself, he was fine. He was acting as amicably as possible to avoid pissing anyone, including megalomaniacs, off. He was doing everything right, wasn’t he?

‘Ron agrees with me,’ he hissed, defensive. ‘It’s suspicious, his silence. I told him everything and he agreed! ’

‘Or did he only go with it in an effort to keep an eye on you and make sure you didn’t do anything stupid?’

Harry thought avoidance was the best option here. ‘It’s a joke, Hermione. There’s no such thing. About the MIACBOC, anyway. The Malfoy thing, I’m still not too sure on.’ He waited for her to laugh, but she just seemed vaguely unimpressed.

‘Right. Stop fucking me off then, Harry. I’ve the essay for Professor Ravenclaw to do and there’s a bit more reading I want to do before committing any thoughts to paper.’ Feeling a bit rejected, he got up to leave.

‘Fine, then,’ he called as he went to his dorm, pasting a smile on, ‘how does it feel, to be deprived of my fantastic sense of humour?’

Hermione just smiled softly at him, waving back. Relieved, Harry went back up with a smile. He really did love his friends, he did. Marmalade and all.

*

Harry sat himself down at the creakiest table at the library opposite Roper the next day, determined to get the week’s reading for Gender Studies done. If he had to write an essay on this at some point, on top of all his other subjects, he might as well actually read something on it so he could hand in more than two words. So there, Hermione, he thought. He wasn’t just ignoring it all like Malfoy was. _He_ was doing something, and it was far more than the preparatory reading that Professor Ravenclaw had asked them to do. Looking at the stacks of books he’d snagged from that Oliver lad with some trepidation, he let his hand inch towards the least intimidating book of the collection. He’d staved off the earlier morning panic by listening to _Blur _until he couldn’t hear his thoughts. He just wouldn’t let himself think, he decided. Possibly going against everything his Mind Healer had ever said, but as if he gave a shit to begin with. He was alive. That had to be enough, didn’t it?__

__Halfway through nearly opening the first text, he was interrupted by a rather loud comment from Roper. Thank fuck, he thought. He’d nearly had to read the text - imagine. Addressing Malfoy at the table across from Harry, Roper leaned so far across she was nearly perpendicular to the chair._ _

__‘Hat’s a right nightmare at the moment,’ Roper was saying._ _

__The conversation seemed to be about millinery - how odd. But Aunt Petunia _had_ been rather fond of her hats. Determined to avoid doing any and all work, Harry jumped into the conversation. ‘I mean, if you wanted a new hat, I guess you could pop to Malkin’s over the weekend?’_ _

__Laughing as silently as possible, Roper’s whole body shaking with effort, she shook her head. ‘Oh, Potter. Never change. I hate to break it to you, but I’m referring to my sister Henrietta, not a hat. Sadly, she’s irreplaceable. I don’t think the Madam sells sisters, do you?’_ _

__Harry felt his neck go warm, flushed with embarrassment. ‘Sorry there, Roper. Go on, ignore me.’_ _

__Fuck, he told himself, dragging the first book from the pile closer towards him in a bid to seem busy. It wasn’t a book, he realised - some sort of essay. Rivers’d just given him his stack of reading, Muggle and magical alike, that he’d got off his mum when Harry asked, and Harry had just accepted it without question. Harry was fairly sure Rivers’s mum had to be a Muggle professor of some sort at this thing, because it was a lot of reading for such a short essay. Harry hadn’t exactly taken a look at the titles or anything, but he found himself with a bound essay in hand, obviously done at Ryman’s or something. It was by some flower: _Iris Marion Young_ , it read across the front._ _

__Right, he thought, flicking through the worn pages, absolutely not. Looking out the window desperately, he thought of what else he could do to procrastinate. Quidditch? That hadn’t really held his interest after the war. Nothing much seemed to, these days. He’d go bug Herm, he thought. She always made time for him - far too good to him, really. Seizing all the books back into his arms, he bid an awkward farewell to Roper and headed out the library. Shit, he thought. All this faff only to get nothing done. He’d just have to crack on with it tomorrow, he supposed._ _

__When he got back to the common room, he was told by some weedy Third Year that Hermione was in the Prefects’ Bathroom up the fifth floor. Wheedling the password out of Hannah, who was still chummy with her fellow Prefects, even though she technically wasn’t one anymore, he trekked all the way up. Once he slipped in, attempt at subterfuge largely forgotten, he was met with the back of Hermione’s head._ _

__‘Hermione,’ he called out, voice echoing, ‘it’s your third favourite friend.’_ _

__She turned round in her fluffy bathrobe from M &S that she’d bought with Harry over Christmas. ‘I resent that accusation,’ Hermione said, in the midst of detangling her braids with a quill. ‘Third favourite?’_ _

__‘Malfoy, innit? Your new favourite friend, despite being prejudiced as fuck?’ Harry ambled over to her, mindful of the edge of the bath. What he wouldn’t give to relax, he thought, knowing full well a bath wouldn’t do anything to relax him._ _

__‘You know,’ Hermione said, wincing as she tried to take out a particularly stubborn braid, ‘instead of trying to connive your way into squirrelling the truth out of me, you could just ask.’_ _

__‘Ah, right then,’ Harry replied, squatting by her feet, watching the light hit the surface of the water. ‘So, Mione, why are you so chummy with Malfoy these days?’_ _

__‘For someone so obsessed, you can be remarkably unperceptive, you know,’ Hermione chided. ‘Why’s anyone friends with anyone?’_ _

__‘They share interests and respect each other?’_ _

__Harry’s sarcasm earned him an eye roll, Hermione Transfiguring a chair for Harry._ _

__‘ _Exactly_ , and I think we’ve both grown into people that we can respect, although we’ve always had mutual interests, to be honest. And it’s not just the equating of moral codes, or whatever. He’s funny. I like him. Simple as.’_ _

__‘But,’ Harry protested, ‘ _how_? Like, how did you even get to have your chats in the first place?’_ _

__‘He asked for help with Muggle Studies, actually, because he wants to do something in the Muggle world for his community service. Among other things, I think. After he apologised we probably started chatting - about Arithmancy, come to think of it - but we became proper friends over Muggle Studies.’_ _

__‘Muggle Studies,’ Harry said, dumbfounded. A broken record he may be, but _Muggle Studies_? He really did need to pay more attention._ _

__‘Well,’ Hermione said, ‘he’s not a total disaster. He was remarkably adept at navigating his way round Sloane, really. We went over Christmas for immersion and all that, the day after I got this bathrobe with you. Should’ve expected it, really, but I swear he had more idea of what to do on the King’s Road than I did.’_ _

__She paused, taking in Harry’s expression. ‘Harry, you don’t need to look so worried. I’m not going to replace you with him, or anything. You’re different people. I want you both in my life, silly. And I really, _really_ don’t think he’s the bigot you’re making him out to be. He’s probably quiet because he doesn’t have anything to contribute, or doesn’t want to.’_ _

__‘But he _always_ has something to contribute,’ he insisted. ‘His charisma, it’s almost repellent, but it’s entirely fed off attention, wouldn’t you agree?’_ _

__‘Maybe, but you really don’t have a leg to stand on, do you? I’d say you care about this all less than he does. Wouldn’t you?’_ _

__Harry didn’t know what to say to that. He cared, he did. But he didn’t want to fight. He was just - he was just so tired. Of fighting. Of being the one who had to act, who _had_ to do this, who _had_ to do that. He’s had enough of that - first with the Dursleys, then with the Order. It was easier to stay neutral, to keep everyone happy, not to feel. And he was sick of having to defend that, time and time again. He’d have to go to lessons soon, he knew, as it sadly was a Tuesday, but he offered to help Hermione with her hair anyway, seeking some other topic._ _

__‘It’s fine, Harry,’ Hermione said, annoyed at yet another deflection. ‘I’ll be done in half an hour or so, anyway.’_ _

__‘Isn’t there a spell for that?’_ _

__Hermione paused. ‘Not really, not one that takes my braids out effectively, anyway. Nothing that I’ve found, at least - because these spells are in Latin, aren’t they? Eurocentric and all. Spells don’t really cater to my hair.’_ _

__Harry stood there, surprised. ‘I’ve never thought about that, actually.’_ _

__‘No,’ Hermione said, giving him a watery smile. ‘Guess you haven’t really had cause to, have you?’_ _

__When he went to lessons, he went with the conversation preying heavily on his mind, choosing to think about things after all._ _

__*_ _

__Friday couldn’t have come any slower. The week Harry’d just had was potentially one of the most painful he’d had this year so far - too many practical DADA sessions, too much work and not enough sleep. His body was rebelling, refusing to work as well. It had always cooperated before, even through vicious bouts of Quidditch training. Must be winter, he thought. His classic excuse whenever his Mind Healer questioned anything - his fear of losing his friends, worries about his future, concerns about what’d happen once he’d leave._ _

__It was only when he and Ron headed to the Divs room that he remembered he hadn’t done the preparatory reading, nor had he any idea of what the class was on._ _

__‘Masculinity,’ Ron helpfully said. ‘And mental health, I think. I lost my reading somewhere between going to the loo and breakfast.’ Harry _had_ thought he’d seen a bit of parchment floating in a rank puddle in the loos, but had just thought it’d been something that had missed the bin._ _

__As they wandered into the room, greeted by Nev’s cheery wave and a nod from Seamus, Hermione beckoned them over. ‘Harry,’ she said, as she lounged on a cushion, ‘I’ve noticed you’ve been a bit more, more present, since our talk in the loos on Tuesday. Maybe even try paying attention, this time?’_ _

__‘’Course,’ Harry said, with absolutely no plans to pay any attention. This was a prime sleeping opportunity, he thought. Letting his eyes drift over the russet curtains and brocade sashes, he allowed himself to relax against the soft carpet, letting the lull of Ravenclaw’s voice send him to sleep. Padma, Cornfoot and Hopkins were arguing again, with Smith having fucked off to Merlin knows where. Catching the ends of their sentences, he let the words float past him - something about having to act a certain way? Forced behaviour? To be strong, and to keep your problems to yourself. That wasn’t him, he thought. He wasn’t one of them. He knew he wasn’t particularly well-adjusted, but he wasn’t a Hopkins type. He was fine._ _

__It was only when Neville started choking up, reading an excerpt from some text, that Harry deigned to look up, worried. He fumbled behind him to find his preparatory reading, wondering what could have made Neville react so, only to realise he hadn’t bothered bringing it from his dorm. Too late to go get it now, he thought. He’d have to cross the Paved Courtyard, and he was sure the lesson’d be over soon. Whatever, he thought. He’d snag Seamus’s instead. Leaning over to see what Neville had been reading, he found himself confronted with the back of Boot’s legs._ _

__‘The fuck’s going on,’ Harry murmured to Seamus as they watched Boot get up, evidently agitated, only to march over to Moon and yell at her some more._ _

__‘…How fun,’ Hermione whispered, pulling her hair into a bun with some force. ‘More fighting. Should I say something?’_ _

__‘Maybe,’ Ron said, giving up the pretence of being quiet. ‘But you just did the last reading. Padma might get annoyed if you talk too much.’_ _

__Shit, Harry thought, as he saw Padma gang up with Moon, proceeding to tell Boot why he was wrong, wrong and wrong. This is why he didn’t speak up - he didn’t need more antagonism in his life._ _

__‘Is it just me, or is it a bit hot in here?’ Harry asked, tugging at his tie, the red and gold his only constant._ _

__Ron shot a Cooling Charm his way, shaking his head. ‘Just you, mate.’_ _

__As he began to take in what everyone was saying, he winced . The texture of the classroom - the smell of Padma’s _Impulse_ , Hopkins’s spit and the noise of Boot’s shoes as he walked past - all rushed over him, ears roaring as everything started to meld into one. It was too much - too fucking much, he thought, stomach beginning to do odd things. All of sudden, he was brought back to a session he had had with his Mind Healer last term._ _

__‘Emotional numbing only goes so far, Harry,’ the interfering bat had said. ‘Isolating yourself won’t do you any good - you’re going to have to talk about your experiences one day.’_ _

__But all he could see in the dim little room was the Battle of Hogwarts, trapped inside his eyelids. The stench of forgotten corpses, unnamed with their wands broken; the early morning air - crisp and brutal - invading his nostrils, weaving its way through the Highland grass; Colin’s face, perpetually eleven, gazing up at him, eyes lolling back. He watched as it would flicker back to the patterned carpet - only to replay Tonks tripping over the troll-leg umbrella stand, Tonks amusing them all, Teddy’s slippery face, raw and newborn._ _

__‘I’m just going to go,’ he mumbled to Ron, refusing to let himself break. ‘To the loo. Yeah, that’s right, to the loo. I’ll be back in five.’_ _

__Hurrying out to the corridor, he let himself collapse against the unflinching stone tiles, letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d held. He must’ve stayed there for a good minute. Two, four, ten._ _

__‘It’s not a weakness, you know? To feel.’_ _

__Harry looked up from the haze of tears clouding his gaze, following the familiar voice. Blinking a few fallen eyelashes out of his eye, he saw Ron there, hand held out. When Harry refused to take it, Ron crumpled into a ball and collapsed to the floor, sitting by Harry._ _

__‘It’s alright,’ Ron said, offering to dry his tears. ‘It really is. You don’t need to be worried about acting in a particular way, you know? We’re not expecting you to act like the ‘old Harry’. The old Harry, I guess - that was just how you used to act. But everyone changes how they act, every day. You don’t have to stay like that. And I don’t think anyone’s expecting you to act any sort of way,’ Ron repeated, pleading almost. ‘Please - just trust me on that, okay?’_ _

__Hermione, almost tripping out from Divs, reached out to place her hand on his arm, reminding him to breathe. He looked down at her inky fingers, her chewed fingernails with remnants of purple nail varnish, her scars._ _

__‘Harry,’ she implored, ‘you can be angry if you want to be. Quiet, whatever. As long as you feel like you’re being honest. To yourself. And then to us. Fuck the rest of the world. You know that, right?’_ _

__‘Listen,’ Ron appealed, snaking an arm around Harry’s shaking form. ‘You’ve been through so much shit. You’re allowed to react how you want to. You don’t have to behave perfectly. And it’s probs not that good for you, mate, anyway. Stop trying to make somebody else happy and do what’s good for you. Please? Let me tell you - _that’ll_ make us happy.’_ _

__Hermione’s fury, a quiet, constant brimful of anger, rose again. ‘If people are expecting you to carry on like nothing’s wrong - like you don’t have PTSD-’_ _

__‘I don’t,’ Harry protested, admittedly a tad feebly._ _

__‘-that you haven’t watched your mates die before you learnt to Apparate, they can do one.’_ _

__Harry looked at the tips of his scuffed shoes, his knobbly ankle, the uneven hem of his school trousers. He let himself breathe - let his body take up space, let himself _be_. Anger, bitterness, tears - all mingling into a Harry. And it would have to do, he thought._ _

__‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Thanks. I love you both so much.’_ _

__And the three of them sat there together, listening to the Professor drone on through the walls, until Harry fell asleep, waking up in his bed at lunch covered in Ron’s duvet._ _


	5. Chapter 5

Harry and the boys were still at Saturday breakfast, content as they could be, when Malfoy trooped out of the front door and out into the real world.

‘Where’s he off to, then?’ Harry scowled, for there was no reason for Malfoy to be off for the weekend - clearly not to Hogsmeade or something as equally plebeian - with a bevy of fit girls trailing after him. It was only the second weekend, he thought. Why were they so desperate to leave? Harry and Ron had planned an absolutely mad weekend of going for a run and maybe even getting an early night in. To be fair, that’d be the best thing that would have happened to Harry all week. Ron was determined to get Harry a bit more positive after yesterday’s incident.

Wrapping his hands in the sleeves of one of Neville’s cardigans that Harry’d snagged earlier, he thought about yesterday’s class - or lack thereof, since the three of them had sat huddled outside the North Tower, pretending to find interest in the circular trapdoor until the rest of the class had streamed out, attempting to pretend they weren’t gossiping. It was comforting, he thought, to have something of his friends’ with him at all times. Even if it was Nev’s ratty cardy. It’d help him forget that they’d all be abandoning him at the end of the year. Rationally, he knew he, too, would be leaving Hogwarts, and he would probably end up living with Ron anyway, or maybe Parvati. Hardly abandoned.

But it’d be different - Hogwarts was his home. He didn’t know who he was without it, and his biggest fear, the one that enveloped him when the candlelight grew so harsh he thought it could see into him, was that he’d lose himself once he left. He could come back, he supposed, but it’d never be the same. Never, he thought, stuffing some French toast into his mouth as he located the syrup. He’d be a visitor in his own home - he’d have to leave his entire childhood behind when Hogwarts kicked him out.

Harry knew he had to accept it one day, but he almost felt like he hadn’t realised they’d all sort of become new people and drifted apart accordingly, nearly leaving for the real world, until he had - and it was too late, then. It was almost as if he’d accidentally ended up where he was, without a single reason as to why. Dipping the ends in more sugar, he turned to Ron, who was busy gesticulating.

‘Weezy, Tits and the rest of the poshos have joined Malfoy’s hunt. They’ll be gone for the weekend, something about open season only being ‘til Feb or summat, like.’

‘Hunt? I thought guns weren’t used here,’ Harry said, eyeing Felicity Worthington with some suspicion.

‘Nah, but I think the game is similar. Fitchy over here seems fairly familiar with it, partridges and the like, yeah?’

‘The fuck are Weezy and Tits and Fitchy?’ Harry asked, scowling.

‘Eloise Midgen, Felicity Worthington, and Justin Fitch-Fletchley, obviously.’

‘Right.’ Which explained why a bunch of tall blonde people returned later that weekend, freckled and tweed-clad, adrenaline rushing through their veins and referring to each other as ‘Midge’, ‘Fels’ and ‘Barrie’. It was dinner when they returned, and Harry suddenly felt a lot less hungry.

‘I forgot Fay Dunbar existed,’ Harry hissed to Ron, as seeing her next to Malfoy in plus-fours suddenly made her existence all too real for him. Harry thought Fay Dunbar should do everyone a favour and stay at a consistent five inches away from Malfoy, especially when he was in plus-fours.

‘Stop gawping at Malfoy, Harry. Nobody else gives a flying fuck about whether we can see his calves. Sorry, his _lower calf_. And I literally mentioned Fay yesterday. You sat next to her last week. The fuck’s wrong with you?’ Harry appreciated Ron for his honesty, if nothing else.

Dean gave him a nudge. ‘Never become an Auror, Haz. We love you, and you can be oddly fixated and observant when you want to be, but you literally forgot a whole person. Granted, you’ve had other things on your mind in the last seven years, but mate, did you think you passed the hashy b’s to a incorporeal entity the other day?’ Harry thought Dean should shut up. ‘Won’t stop thinking about Malfoy, eh?’ Harry _really_ thought Dean should shut up.

‘Aye aye,’ came a rousing chorus, nodding at Dean in approval. Harry thought they could all fuck off, and told them so.

Come Monday morning, Harry was determined to rectify his obviously humiliating fuck-up.

‘It’s not a reflection on you, or anything,’ he apologised to Fay, in an attempt to make brekkie less awkward. ‘It’s just me being a twat, I’m literally so sorry.’

Fay raised an eyebrow, understandably narked off. ‘Did you just ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ me?’

Harry froze, intent on explaining, when Neville shook his head from beside him. ‘The hole’s getting bigger, mate. Stop digging, stop digging... take it from a Herbologist.’

Harry decided to put all thoughts of Fay out of his mind and think about Malfoy’s calves instead, with the drone of Malfoy going on about yesterday’s woodcocks and pheasants in the background.

‘You could make your crush a little less obvious, mate,’ Ron whispered, leaning over Harry as he fished the butter from Hermione, covering Harry’s ‘besotted-looking’ face as he did. A true mate, that’s what.

‘But what crush,’ Harry protested. ‘Malfoy’s a bigot, I told you. Hermione mayn’t think so, but I swear I’m onto something. He was silent in that lesson, yeah? And he’s probably just buttering Hermione up for something. I don’t know quite why - maybe to get back into society’s good books, who knows, but he’s definitely acting off.’

‘Who said I was talking about Malfoy, eh?’

Harry groaned at Ron’s comment. ‘You’re a right prick.’

They sat in silence for a bit, waiting for everyone else to come down to breakfast, chewing at their toast. Malfoy’d even offered some of his jam to Harry, supposedly to save Harry the trauma of trying another of Ron’s marmalades, but Harry suspected it was part of his grand scheme to ferret his way into society’s good graces. Ron had just laughed and said something about oblivious fuckheads. Harry had taken that as a compliment - evidently, his new attitude of not giving a fuck was working.

Four minutes later, conversation started up again.

‘Honestly,’ Ron said, as Boot and Smith started going on about their post-school plans again, ‘it’s got to the point where I, the resident skint bastard, am willing to pay if someone starts a conversation that isn’t about school or what we’re going to do after school or in Harry’s case, Malfoy. Please. Every single fucking conversation has been about NEWTS or university or _the_ Ministry paths to take or apprenticeships or training or poncing around Southeast Asia to have wild sex and take dodgy Potions so please, _please_ , someone save us all from dying of boredom and think of something else? Surely it’s not that hard?’

‘At least he knows he’s a tightarse,’ Hopkins sniggered. Harry shot him a glare, straightening up.

‘Fuck off, will you?’ Harry fumed in his seat, looking around to see if anyone dared to say anything. He knew Ron, war hero that he was, still got a lot of shit. The war hadn’t changed _that_ much. Just him, he supposed. And everyone else.

Monday melted into the Wednesday without much fuss. He wrote to his Mind Healer, only lying for half the letter this time, and went on another run with Ron. He even agreed to listen to Hermione read one of her favourite Muggle texts, despite not paying much attention. Upon seeing Parvati chum up with Lily Moon from his favourite seat in the common room, he even made an effort to say hello. He wasn’t sure if Lily’s utter shock was telling of his recent behaviour, but he just resolved to make a bit more effort next time.

Things were going well, if he ignored the ever-mounting pile of work he had to do for McGoons. His DADA wasn’t weak, exactly, but he had taken to using it as an ‘outlet’, as his Mind Healer said, for ‘repressed aggression’. What a load of bollocks, he thought.

On Thursday, he found a book on his bed. _Five Relaxation Spells For You and Your Friends_ , it read, in a fancy curled script, pages curling and yellowed.

‘Oi Herms,’ Harry said as he trooped to the common room, waving the book about. ‘Fuck off, will you? I’m doing fine. Right, Ron?’

Ron gave a non-committal shrug from his vantage point on the comfiest sofa. ‘Wasn’t Hermione, don’t think. She usually writes a note on the first page.’

Harry looked suspiciously at the rest of his mates for the rest of the day, but no one seemed to have any clue who it was from.

At dinner, Malfoy told him to shut up in between critiquing the fluffiness of the potatoes and picking at the roast.

‘Just be grateful, Potter. Does it really matter who it’s from?’

‘Well,’ Harry said, a bit stung, ‘yes. I’d like to thank them. And also tell them to get out of my business, thanks. I don’t _need_ Relaxation Spells, thank you very much.’

Malfoy looked an odd mix of pleased and affronted. ‘Maybe a potion, then,’ he mumbled, seemingly to no one. Harry rolled his eyes and focussed on chasing his peas. What an odd duck.

Upon accidentally finding himself into Friday already, he was determined to at least pay some attention this time round. He had done the preparatory reading, on Metamorphmagi and gender constructs, and on compulsory heteronormativity. Longest fucking words, he thought. Bit unnecessary. Harry was still trying to prevent his Shrivelfig from dying, he didn’t exactly have time to process the reading. Thank fuck it was only short - Dean had helped him get through it, something about everyone assuming everyone was straight until proven otherwise. If he were being honest, he may have let the wind carry his reading away when they had been lounging in the grass, trying to get some Vitamin D by the Great Lake. He knew gender wasn’t an issue for him - he liked whoever, just like Gin - and beyond that, he didn’t really care. His Great Summer Sexuality Crisis was long gone. Far less dramatic than Dean and Seamus’s getting together, definitely. And for that he was grateful.

‘Oops,’ he had said, unashamed. ‘It’s the wind’s fault, though.’

‘The squid ate my homework? _Really_ , Harry?’ Hermione, perpetually unimpressed, had just shoved him a pear.

But fucking Malfoy, he thought. Harry had to outdo him, had to say something this lesson, so as to show Hermione he and Malfoy _couldn’t_ be compared, and that he was also not a sexist. Spooning more of Hannah’s Lightning Bolt Loops into his mouth with some rapidity, since they were quite - alright, they were very late - he grabbed Ron and headed for the North Tower. This was of course only to remind Harry that he’d forgotten to deal with his Shrivelfig plant that week, so he ran as he tried to think what he could bribe Neville with to do it for him in his next bit of spare time.

This time round, Harry was confident. He wasn’t going to break down, wasn’t going to stay silent, wasn’t going to spend the lesson cataloguing everyone’s dubious fashion choices as a way to pass the time. Even though Rivers’s awful wardrobe and Malfoy’s cravat-scarf _were_ of unlimited amusement. He’d make Hermione happy - no, he’d make _himself_ proud, be a good person, and learn things. Right.

Bracing himself for whatever discussion he’d walk into this time, Ron and Harry were greeted with an uncomfortable silence. Now _that_ was ominous, as silence never boded well for Hogwarts. A bunch of loud, opinionated teens in one silent room? Had another megalomaniac come back? Fuck no, he thought. He’d steal a Thestral and go back to Little Whinging.

He and Ron made their unsubtle way over to MacDougal, who was sitting the closest to the entrance. Squeezing themselves onto a bit of carpet, they froze. Because Tracey Davis, the Slytherin with the eyebrows, was crying - no, bawling. Full out sobbing, albeit silent, and she was making no attempt to leave. Harry let his eyes widen meaningfully, looking at Davis and back to Ron, attempting to figure out what their plan of action was going to be.

MacDougal shook her head, picking up a Parvati’s quill and scribbling a message on the back of the essay from the first week that they’d just got back. _Don’t bother_ , she wrote. Then she mimicked imbibing something, looking at them with intention before going back to fiddling with her tights, casting a few spells to fix the ladders she’d picked with the quill.

Harry stared at her, confused. Ron nodded, apparently understanding, before writing on the back of his hand. _The Deflating Draught_ , he wrote, _with the Garotting Gas, 6th_?

Ron, taking Harry’s silence as confirmation that the message was received, moved to Vanish the ink off his hand.

‘Tell me later,’ Harry mouthed. ‘I don’t understand.’

Ron just tugged him up. ‘I don’t feel well,’ he lied, to nobody in particular. It wasn’t as if Professor Ravenclaw could stop them. ‘Harry’s going to take me to the Hospital Wing.’

And off they trudged, Ron explaining to him all the while.

‘The abortion in Sixth Year, remember?’

Harry froze. ‘What abortion?’

‘Tracey Davis’s abortion. You must’ve been too occupied with our resident Ferret to pay much attention, but _surely_ you must’ve known. A potions abortion, she didn’t want to go through the Hospital Wing - her parents would have known otherwise.’

‘I literally had no idea,’ Harry said. Confused, he started to think about what had went on that year beyond Malfoy. Nor had he any clue of what would happen if a girl got pregnant - it had never occurred to him, but he supposed he was lucky in not having to know. ‘Is there school policy?’

Ron shrugged, awkward. ‘Smidge unclear. But she snuck into Snape’s stores and filched some Garotting Gas and Deflating Draught, regardless. And some Caxambu Style Borborygmus Potion, I think. Somehow managed to work, not sure on the specifics.’

‘How much have I _missed_?’ Harry asked, determined to catch up on everyone’s lives - and learn a little more about what everyone else had to go through that he was lucky enough to have not needed to know. Hermione’d know, wouldn’t she?

Ron just gave him a wry smile. ‘Listen, you’ve been off in your own world recently. Thinking of Malfoy’s plus-fours, eh? And for the last seven years anyway, can’t be blamed. We had more important things on our mind, hadn’t we? But you seem happier now. Time to get back into the swing of things, maybe.’

‘I was unhappy?’

Ron wrapped him into a hug. ‘Listen, Harry. You may be good at lying to yourself, but not to us. No to those who love you.’

*

After Fish Friday, the most classic of lunches, Harry was too busy sucking the grease off his hands to notice Ron and Hermione corralling him in the common room, right by the fireplace.

‘Hullo, you two,’ Harry said, feeling rather cheery. The winter sun had come out to play and he had had a solid chat with Parvati earlier, on what they could do about having a greater selection of foods from around the world. Not that he didn’t appreciate a good potato, but after potatoes sixteen different ways, he was ready for something a bit different.

‘Hullo, Harry,’ Ron greeted, ‘we’re here about an important matter.’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Hermione confirmed, oddly serious. His mood quickly plummeted, nervous. ‘How do you feel about Draco, Harry?’

Harry blinked at them. ‘Not much. He’s not _so_ bad, I’ve decided, not anymore. But he’s probably still prejudiced. I wasn’t there last lesson, though, so I can’t say.’

There, he thought. A rational, sensible, well-thought-out answer.

‘Denial,’ Ron sang, ‘d-e-’

‘I’m not in denial. Denial of what?’

‘...mate yeah, hate to say it, but that there is a prime example.’

Hermione cleared her throat. ‘We have prepared for this. Ron?’

Ron held up a cue card. ‘As you see here, you have spent... approximately 35 hours stalking Malfoy this week.’

‘And you have spent 35 hours of your week stalking me ‘stalking’ Malfoy,’ Harry said, scowling at the offending item of stationery.

Ron cracked a smile at that. ‘No we hired a Firstie to do it, actually.’

Hermione stepped in. ‘No, of course we’re not into illegal child labour, we just deducted your sleeping hours, eating and lessons from the total hours in a week. It was quicker that way, because you _do not do anything else_. And notice the use of the word approximately, here.’

Harry snatched the cue card out of Ron’s hand and crumpled it into his fist. ‘I should think not.’

‘Why,’ Ron emphasised, brow scrunched, ‘can’t you accept you’ve projected your crush in an unhealthy manner because you’re - sorry, let me check the cue cards here - unwilling to let yourself have a crush on that pasty, pasty... weed because you’re afraid he could be a sexist? Or are you determined to make him a bigot in your mind so you have an excuse for not making a move, because you’re too much of a coward? What is it, exactly? We have to thank him for rousing you out of your apathy, but honestly mate, this is not the thing to be fixating on. It’s, like, trivialising serious issues, and stuff.’

‘I don’t have a crush on him, fuck off,’ Harry insisted. 

Ron pulled out another cue card. On it was a cut-out of a _Witch Weekly_ article from their preteen special. Harry knew this because he had read it three times cover to cover, just because it happened to lay on a chair three centimetres from Malfoy once. The cut-out read _‘Symptoms you have a crush!!!’_ in a lush pink bold.

Harry twitched as he deliberated. If he tried to go for Ron, they’d just end up in an all-out chase involving the whole of Gryffindor, like that one time wet tampons had been thrown to stick on the ceiling to get back at the other faction having rubbed toothpaste on all the door handles, which no amount of Vanishing Spells managed to get rid of. If he tried to discuss anything, he’d end up having to go into all sorts of depth about things he really, really, really didn’t want to go into depth about. Right. What to do, what to do indeed. He feared the second he decided to introspect was the second he would have check himself in to St Mungo’s, so perhaps, he thought, that’d have to be held off. He was doing a fair job at acting normal, if he did say so himself. Normal for him, anyway.

‘I really don’t think I have a crush. It’s not as if I fixate on him, or anything.’

‘You mightn’t have registered it,’ Hermione said with a roll of her eyes, ‘but you’re hardly perceptive when it comes to yourself, are you?’

Well, fuck. Time for a distraction.

‘So are you going to the party tonight, then?’

*

‘I - I do not know what I’m doing.’ This was such a frequent state of mind for Harry that he thought he could turn it into a lifestyle.

‘Flailing, I believe it’s called,’ Ron yelled over the music. ‘Herms made me cue cards on dance moves,’ he said, his reply nearly lost amid the wailing chorus of a ‘cauldron full of h-ot str-ong lo-ove’.

‘Just keep flailing,’ Harry said, nodding grimly to himself. He turned to his right and there was Parkinson, in a purple velour tracksuit with _Juicy_ emblazoned on her bum in gold. He raised an eyebrow - _he_ was supposed to be the fashion-challenged one?

‘Just,’ Ron said, ‘keep bouncing up and down with one arm in the air. A solid dance move.’

‘I’m wearing a grey top, sweaty pits are a thing, you know!’ Harry yelled back. The stains on his shirt were nearly as bad as the pool of sweat at the curve of Parvati’s back, turning her grey trackies dark.

‘I know, and I’m losing blood in my arm!’

‘Time for a drink?’ Harry had never been so eager.

‘Time for a drink,’ Ron concurred.

Heading over to the tables at the back, Ron snagged a cider[1] and some chocolate.

‘Cheeky frog?’ Ron asked, offering Harry a handful.

‘Yeah, ta mate.’

‘Did you hear, did you _hear_ , the price of choc frogs’ve gone up five sickles.’

‘That’s an absolute fucking outrage Ron, you’re right,’ Harry said, amused at what tipsy Ron had to say.

‘So fucking ridiculous, inflation these days.’

‘It’s the same in the Muggle world, Freddos were 10p but they’ve been going up bit by bit. Like mate, absolute extortion.’

‘But choc frogs - now that’s unreasonable. Five sickles? Complete ‘mare.’

That was how Hermione found her two favourite people arguing vehemently over whether the price rise in Freddos or choccy frogs was more of a national tragedy. She began to reorganise her mental hierarchy of her favourite people to put her parents, who didn’t fucking remember her, at the top. Now she was sad. Fuck. 

‘The real question, boys, is which came first?’ she said, plastering on a smile. ‘The animated-animorphed- ani- I don’t fucking care, the choc frog or the 2D Freddo?’

Ron looked at her in absolute adoration for even thinking of another aspect of the Freddo/choc frog debate, whereas Harry just scrunched up his face.

‘Nothing is 2D in real life, Mione,’ he protested.

‘You know what I mean. I’m too bevved to argue semantics, give it a rest Harry.’

Ron and Harry looked at each other in wonderment.

‘This is a moment I shall remember for posterity,’ Ron gasped. ‘I’ll get it emblazoned on my tombstone.’

‘I’ll find one of Malfoy’s badges and get it in flashing blue _and_ pink, to be equal opportunities,’ Harry said, nodding at Hermione.

‘Back to Malfoy again,’ Ron sighed, ‘and we were doing so well - only two and a half minutes since the last mention.’

Rolling her eyes, cider in hand, Hermione walked towards Malfoy holding court with the rest of the Eighths, regaling them with some dramatic tale involving a threesome, vomit and someone choking on a dick. Not their own, she gathered.

Ron and Harry returned to dancing, determined to make the party seem a little less dead and more - well, more fun.

‘These parties are really awkward when you don’t know the song,’ Harry yelled, hoping his words made it past Hopkins in his grimy Whomping Willows shirt and over to Ron, similarly clad.

‘You what, mate?’

‘I said,’ Harry sighed, trying to force his way past Hopkins, ‘you know what? Nevermind.’

After a few more confused moves, Harry gestured to where Malfoy and Parkinson were standing - on top of an antique table, alcohol spilled down their fronts.

‘Are they singing?’ Harry asked, stunned.

‘They’re chanting the vocal accompaniment to the instrumentals of a solstice hymn,’ Ron said in disbelief, as he watched Parkinson and Malfoy link arms and sing, in perfect two part harmony. ‘It’s occasionally also used in cotillions, as well. I’m fairly sure Malfoy over there played the harp at Witley Court once, it was all that was talked about in the sewing circles for a month.’

‘A what now? I got none of that, mate. They must be completely trollied to do that, Merlin.’

‘I think there was some karaoke going on earlier to some nursery rhymes, come to think of it,’ Ron said. ‘I’m so glad we came late, that’s well fucking dodge. And could this party be any more dead?’

Five minutes of exceedingly crap attempts at dancing later, Harry had enough.

‘Time’s it?’

‘Half one, I suspect? Dunno, couldn’t Tempus even if you paid me,’ Ron said, groaning as a rogue candle wobbled and swivelled, flame shining directly in his eye.

‘What do we do, then?’

‘The eternal question,’ Ron replied, with a thump on Harry’s back. ‘We get a drink, of course. No other way to deal with awkwardness, is there?’

‘Course, course. Right. What’s it to be then, lads?’ Harry addressed the last statement to Seamus and Dean, who had miraculously unravelled themselves from their ‘sneaky’ tug at the alcove at the back and had come back to join them.

‘Come on, Haz!’ Ron said, pounding him on the back as he polished off the first drink Seamus handed to him.

‘We like to drink with Harry, ‘cause Harry is our mate. And when we drink with Hazza, he downs it all in eight! Seven! Six!’

Harry could hear the boys and their drinking song, but as the alcohol began to hit, the buzz of the party began to drown out, his ears swarming with something or the other. Or was it the stifling heat? The loud noise, the press of random bodies against him? Surely it wasn’t so crowded as this, there couldn’t have been that many of them. He reached the bottom and winced. That shit was grimy right there. And -

He was bodily thrown as Fay Dunbar, completely off her tits, collided into to him after failing to be caught be an equally drunk Tracey Davis. Picking himself up off the floor, he groaned as someone (he suspected Roper and her Buffalo shoes, damn her) trod rather pointedly on his shin. Really, Roper, his shin? When he finally was put to rights by the kindly Hannah, he was by Malfoy’s antique table, which Malfoy and Parkinson had collapsed upon, limbs intertwined.

All this in the paper about parties being fun and that shit was bollocks. He was having the antithesis of fun. He was in pain, covered in sweat and dust and couldn’t hear anything but Parkinson loudly detailing this one sexual experience in particular that he really, really didn’t want to know about. Harry didn’t want to know about her holiday plans, her after-school plans or her sex life. He really, really didn’t. So when Malfoy suggested tequila to anyone and everyone in the vicinity, judging by the loudness of his voice, Harry was almost relieved. Almost, because he was in the vicinity too. Not that he wasn’t up for a cheeky little shot, but that it could only lead to potential scenarios for further humiliation.

So, of course, it was not quite ten minutes later when he found himself licking salt out of Malfoy’s arsecrack. Or not quite his arsecrack, but the fine hairs by the small of his back leading to his arse, as Harry took the shot glass tucked into the back of Malfoy’s waistband by the teeth. Zabini was holding Harry’s hands behind his back, preventing him from doing anything but throwing back the entire shot, reaching over to suck the lime out from between Malfoy’s teeth. Harry had had this distinct feeling of disengagement the entire night, but this particular moment felt as if he were watching a stranger enact out a parody of a teenager’s life, through a screen like on one of Dudley’s VHS tapes. When Ron asked what the fuck he’d been thinking the next day, he knew he wouldn’t be able to answer.

Because it had been Malfoy’s bright smile that had made him do it. Malfoy, his elegant hands, reaching out to him. Fuck, he must be sloshed. Waxing fucking poetic over Malfoy’s claws. Malfoy, laughing and falling over him, pressing the shot into his hand. And Harry, helpless, took it, none the wiser to Zabini and Parkinson cackling with Malfoy behind him.

And now, it was Malfoy’s beckoning that made him follow him out to the corridor, Malfoy’s breath ghosting on his forehead as he sank to his knees.

‘What do you want,’ Malfoy demanded, eyes glassy and neck red, the flush spreading to his chin.

‘What,’ Harry replied. He had never been so confused. He was dizzy and just a bit too fuelled on drink to contemplate what he was doing, really. He hoped that if he just went with it and didn’t overthink it, it wouldn’t be too obvious. Sure, yeah, virginity was a construct according to Padma or whoever, but he was still constructed as very much a virgin at 3:48 in the morning that fateful Saturday, and -

‘You’re overthinking it. It’s not that hard. Do you want me to suck you off or not?

In a land of metaphors, he was a - he was - he frowned. How the fuck had he ended up here? He hadn’t even realised Malfoy was interested. He’d just sucked a shot out of Malfoy’s arse - alright, perhaps that _was_ some sort of indicator they’d end up here - but they hadn’t even snogged. And he swore Malfoy still hated him. And wasn’t Malfoy a bigot, still? And -

‘I’ll stop then, if you keep overthinking, because clearly I mustn’t be doing a very good job, and since you have your thoughts to keep your company…’

He opened his mouth to say something, anything, preferably anything that would get Malfoy to continue -

‘Right then, I’m off,’ Malfoy said, sighing rather pointedly with relief as he got up off the floor, stretching his legs out. He proceeded to walk out as if none of that had happened - as if he hadn’t just offered to suck Harry off, as if he hadn’t just -

And as for Harry? Harry was left there gaping after him like a complete ninny, trackie bums damp at the crotch from precome and the cold, panicky feeling in him growing with every tick of the clock.

Well then, he thought. What a fucking brilliant end to his evening.

 

[1] ’A proper one, at that. You don’t grow up in Ottery St Catchpole for nothing.’ Ron was a cider snob. Hazards of growing up in the West Country.


	6. Chapter 6

With Saturday reserved for locating Hangover Potions and surreptitiously whining about the remnants of their hangovers, Sunday was spent by the frozen Great Lake, all the Eighth Years gathering to skate - or attempting to, at least.

From his spot under a barren tree, grass crunchy and cold, he watched the rest of his mates laugh, yell, be alive. But it felt so odd, he thought, for everything to be so confined. He barely saw Luna and Ginny these days, even though he’d promised they’d catch up. Despite all the Eighth Years returning to their dorms, as depleted as they were, they ate together, with the bulk of their classes now not segregated by houses as there were so few of them. The new inter-house friendships had just come at the cost of inter-year friendships, it seemed. It was supposed to help them integrate, he knew, but all that had happened was he’d just realised he knew no one. Including Malfoy, he realised. He really had no idea what he was up to. Just had gleaned things from Hermione’s occasional mentions and the odd tidbit in the paper. How Malfoy had gone from a facade of civility, probably just to ensure Slytherin’s reputation wouldn’t be entirely ruined, to offering to give him head he had no idea. They’d barely interacted all year, if he thought about it.

As these thoughts ran through his head, he watched the boy - man in question come off the ice, joining Harry on his damp bit of grass. There was an awkward minute or ten as they sat in the cold, cheeks pinched red, waiting for the other to say something. It didn’t even have to be about the aborted happenings of the early hours of that morning, Harry thought wistfully. Anything for them to return to fraught civility, and not this strange, drawn-out tension that had resulted from them having acted upon their acknowledged… tension. Allegedly, of course. Not that Harry thought they had any tension.

Then, out of the silence, Malfoy spoke. ‘We used to skate a lot, as children.’

Harry tried to imagine Malfoy and his set on roller skates and burst out laughing.

‘What?’ Malfoy shoved Harry. So they were back to that, then. A tense mimicry of normality, attempting to replicate what actual friends did. ‘Fuck off, whatever you’re envisioning. No, fen skating, along the marshes in Norfolk. Pansy’s from East Anglia, you see. She doesn’t like to talk about it much now, but some of my happiest memories are from the Fens.’

‘That must be nice.’

‘Hmm?’

‘To be happy. To have happy memories, I mean, from when you were small.’ Fuck, now Harry has gone and made it weird.

‘You’re still scrawny, you prick. And stop wallowing, you have happy memories. Your dickhead Patronus is proof of that,’ Malfoy said, a small smile on his lips.

There was a pause as Malfoy looked across the frozen lake, watching their friends laugh to cover the ache of war and death and heartbreak. When he spoke again, his voice was a fragment of what it had been.

‘You’re right,’ Malfoy whispered. ‘It must be nice, to be happy. But you can allow yourself to be happy, you know. Even though you’re sad. You can be both.’

Malfoy squinted at the cold sun, which was dodging behind some clouds.

‘I wouldn’t let yourself waste these last few moments just because you’re also miserable,’ Malfoy continued. ‘You don’t have to feel guilty for it.’

They sat there in silence, fingers numb from the ice. Last few moments? Harry panicked - of Eighth Year? Of life? Was there to be _more_ impending death? After it began to get uncomfortable, Harry sought for a conversation starter. This was mostly due to Harry being unable to keep his hands to himself, his fingers slowly inching closer and closer to Malfoy’s. He thought it was best to abort while he still stood a chance - the conversation was veering dangerously close to ‘stuff he didn’t want to talk about’ territory. He had no idea why, when around Malfoy, that sort of thing just slipped out. Remembering the conversation at lunch [1] earlier, he decided to go for a tame question.

‘So you live in Wiltshire, yeah?’

It was not a tame question. It was a stupid, politically-charged question, the answer to which Harry perfectly well knew. Malfoy knew that Harry knew, and it was all very awkward. Shit. Moreover, what if the Manor had been seized? Or they had abandoned it, in a fit of anger and despair? Maybe the Malfoys were living in that Greek villa Parkinson had mentioned. Malfoy certainly didn’t look any tanner for it.

‘Well, we obviously have the London pied-à-terre for the social season. But Malfoy Manor, as the family seat, has always been my home,’ Malfoy said. Harry had to give him credit for handling the situation rather graciously, even if he was a total tosser with multiple places. 

‘If we’re all about being honest today, let me confess this: I think the name’s a bit naff. I’d rather it’d been called after something else, like the other estates in the area,’ Malfoy went on to say. ‘Corsham, Stourhead, Wilton, Bowood.’

Harry wondered what it would be like to have a home, and what it would be like for your identity to be so strongly attached to it. Beyond Hogwarts, of course.

‘So what do you do in Wiltshire, then?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Forage for sloe to make gin, things like that. It’s such fun, it really is. Lovegood and Weasley are from Devon, aren’t they? They’d know, it’s probably a West Country thing.’

Occasionally, when Harry was feeling particularly morose, he’d torture himself with the what-ifs. What if he were to have grown up in Godric’s Hollow, in the West Country, foraging for sloe and going on Crup walks through tiny, picturesque towns in Gloucestershire, making friends with the horsey types in jodhpurs at Hidcote. With two parents who loved him and his two godfathers side by side, madly in love and realising their own what-ifs. It would do him no good to think of more. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes in an effort to not well up, turning to Malfoy. He’d had enough of wallowing.

‘Sounds - sounds a bit boring, really. What really is there to do, then? Say, if you wanted to go on a date, or something.’

Harry really hated himself, didn’t he. Just signing himself up for another round of self-flagellation. At least it couldn’t get any worse than asking your crush - alright, it was a crush, what with last night and all - what they would do, on a hypothetical date, in a hypothetical universe where Harry had grown up happy, in the Cotswolds, without years of abuse -

‘Blaise and I, back when we were together, we used to go on shooting dates. Got the adrenaline going, and everything.’ Malfoy’s eyes glazed over as he began to reminisce. ‘Angry sex is good sex, apparently. Until you realise that there’s never any make-up sex, and it’s all just anger. But we’re good mates now, still.’

So it seemed that it could get worse. Well. It could only go up from here, really.

‘Right.’ Harry’s face felt aflame. ‘Wouldn’t know.’

‘Hmm?’ Malfoy looked confused for a second. Harry prayed he’d just let it go, and forget, and somehow they’d rewind a good twenty-four hours. His kingdom for a time-turner. ‘Oh that’s right. You’re a virgin, aren’t you?’

And even worse. Right. He wondered what the fastest way to extricate himself from the situation was. Would launching himself through the frozen lake be quicker than burning the entire field they were sat in and blaming it on a fit of wild magic, causing Malfoy to completely forget the last month? On the plus side, Malfoy’s observation meant that he couldn’t tell he was inexperienced, from their apparently ill-fated night. Or was it morning, if it happened at two?

Malfoy cut into his thoughts.

‘Just forget last night. We shouldn’t have done anything, anyway. We would have regretted it. We were both far too drunk to agree to do anything, weren’t we?’

Harry blinked. ‘Yeah,’ he said, navigating this unfamiliar territory. They were really going to actually _speak_ about this? Bloody fucking hell. ‘Too drunk. You’re right.’

And with that excruciating conversation behind him, he ran to join the others on the ice, keen to forget that Malfoy had ever existed.

*

But, to his great sadness and absolute disgust, he happened to actually have friends. Enabling friends - completely unforgivable. So later that day as he lounged in Classroom Eleven,[2] having a Tunnock to pair with his perfectly forgettable cup of tea, he was hardly expecting Ron to come up behind him and betray him utterly.

Ron nudged him in the ribs. ‘You should go talk to him. Seriously, go, or I’ll do it for you.’

Emboldened by Ron’s threat, for he knew Ron really would (and expose him in the process), Harry trudged over to Malfoy and collapsed into the neighbouring love seat, slightly daunted and very apprehensive.

‘Anything exciting that you’re doing?’ Not bad for an opening line, Harry thought. Not bad indeed. Normal. Normal, which was good, and forgettable - even better.

‘Oh,’ Malfoy said, looking up from the sofa, ‘Pansy and I are just planning the menu for Ygraine in April. It’s our first time planning and there’s a bit of a debate regarding the age of the balsamic to be used.’

What a thing to have a debate about. There were real problems to get worked over about - Gender Studies was testimony to that. ‘The what now?’

‘Ygraine, the annual coming out ball. It’s to be a reel.’ Malfoy looked Harry up and down, smirking slightly. ‘Perhaps you should get into a kilt for our entertainment, hmm? Actually, we should all go in kilts, Pans, don’t you think?’

‘Oh, do let’s!’ Pansy said from her vantage point on the arm of the sofa, staring rather pointedly at Harry’s thighs (or perhaps at the negative space surrounding them where more thigh should be). Harry couldn’t quite tell if she was being sarcastic or not, which, he surmised, was the point. He turned his attention back to Malfoy. Overthinking would do him no good.

‘They have _coming out_ balls in the Wizarding World?’

‘No, not that sort of coming out,’ Malfoy replied. Was Harry to start calling him Draco, now that they had officially had more than two minutes’ worth of conversation? Surely not.

‘Debutantes into high society, you tit,’ Malfoy continued. ‘Admittedly slightly archaic, but how else would we start the Season?’

Harry had the feeling it was a rhetorical question, although he could think of lots of other ways seasons could be started. With a weather change, for one.

‘And by coming out as debutantes, you mean…’

‘Eligible for marriage, and all that rot,’ Malfoy told him, tapping his roll of parchment self-importantly. ‘It’s a bit too bidding market for my tastes, but we do enjoy it. Should be a nice cheer-up for high society after the war, you know, a few twinkly lights, ball gowns, cocktails…’

‘What, with something stupid, like durian canapes or something?’

Malfoy rolled his eyes but his smile belied him. ‘I make a smashing lychee cocktail, if I do say so myself. Add a cheeky bit of pomegranate to that martini as well, if you’re up for a bit of variation. Delightful, simply delightful.’

‘Good for you Malfoy, no one gives a shit.’ Maybe he needed to work on his flir - conversational skills a little better. He attempted a grin to show he was joking, but judging by Malfoy’s now closed-off expression, it came off as more of a grimace.

‘I do actually,’ Pansy commented from the arm of the sofa, ‘I’m excellent at drinking lychee cocktails.’

Parkinson and Malfoy shared a smug grin, reaching out to intertwine their figures together. Harry felt stupid and short and inexperienced. He had never had any lychee before; he didn’t even know what lychee looked like. He had had all of four cocktails in his eighteen years, and all of them had been overpriced and overwhelming – too bitter, too sweet, too much.

‘I think someone pissed on that sofa actually, last night I think,’ Harry said, not without some bitterness. When Pansy wouldn’t move, he consigned himself to spending another ten minutes watching Malfoy sketch out plans of ballrooms and list necessities with Parkinson, with a pang in his stomach he wasn’t sure was to do with indigestion. It was a rather sad ten minutes, he had to admit, just sitting there kicking his legs like the child he was never allowed to be.

‘Alright,’ Malfoy said as he wrapped up. ‘I’ll go have Inty crack on with it now.’

Harry frowned at that. ‘Inty?’ A house-elf name, it had to be. _Inty_.

‘My secretary. I’ve had her since I was little, really. She truly does do wonders. I can have her recommend someone for you if you were interested.’

‘You have a secretary?’ Malfoy was still at school, for fuck’s sake. What did he need a secretary for, filing his notes away? Harry felt his crush somewhat shrivel and perish.

‘Oh yes,’ Malfoy confirmed, ‘you couldn’t have possibly thought we were doing it all ourselves?’

‘You did just say you were planning it,’ Harry said, increasingly irate.

‘Planning, yes,’ Malfoy said, punctuating that with a sharp nod, ‘but that’s far from enacting.’

‘We,’ Parkinson drawled, pointing at herself and Malfoy, ‘are not people of labour, darling.’

‘Right, that’s my cue to leave then,’ Harry said, making an aborted attempt at standing up. He didn’t quite know if he had said that in an attempt at levity or if he really was going to leave. Why was he like this?

‘Potter, while we’re at it then, why _have_ you been staring at me?’

Fuck. He should’ve left while he had the chance.

‘Ah. Er.’ He sought for an explanation that wouldn’t come off as his needing to be institutionalised. ‘Just wondering about your conditioner, you know? It’s just that my hair’s untamable - why am I telling you this, you know this - and yours is always lovely - uh, manageable, and I was wondering what you used.’

Harry wondered if if could stage an accident and if so, which of the available disasters would have the highest rate of induced amnesia.

Malfoy looked at him as if he had Apparated to the moon and back. ‘Marshmallow and tamarind, not that it would do you any good. You have a different hair texture from mine. Anyways, I don’t understand why the famed Potter hair can’t be dealt with a dollop of Sleekeazy’s. Your grandfather did invent it, you know.’ There was a flicker of hesitation in Malfoy’s eyes. ‘Sorry, you do know, right? I haven’t said anything off, have I?’

‘Calm down, Malfoy, you don’t have to feel guilty all over again over something you technically had no control over. And yes, I do know what good old Fleamont was up to in his heyday.’

Brill. They had landed in another patch of awkwardness to rival yesterday’s. Harry considered leaving altogether. Or would that make it more awkward? He looked mournfully at his cup of tea, now cold. He was such a fucking mess, and this time, Hermione couldn’t pick up the pieces for him. Would lounging in bed all day be an acceptable alternative?

He was saved yet again by the incoming presence of Sophie Roper, who had thankfully changed into more sensible and less damaging footwear.

‘Hettie,’ she said loudly, which was apparently her only volume setting, ‘the skinny minny that she is, gets away with eating anything. It’s too unfair.’

Malfoy and Parkinson immediately switched from staring oddly at Harry’s shoes to looking at Roper’s - Roper’s nice nose. Harry wondered if he could go grab his tea and whether it’d taste the same after a Warming Charm.

‘Henry’s some incredible pins on her, you must agree,’ Parkinson said.

‘Her?’ Harry asked, sure that they were talking about a Hattie or someone, not sure how they ended up on a girl named Henry.

‘Gosh, Harry, there’s no need to be so heteronormative about your nicknaming. Henry is Henrietta, obviously.’

‘Your sister, right,’ Harry realised. ‘Hettie-Hat-Henry. And a cheeky slip-in of the words we learnt last lesson, right.’

‘Look, Draco, I think he’s catching on,’ Roper laughed. Shit, Harry thought. Was he really that dense in class that _Roper_ , of all people, noticed? Did that mean that _Malfoy_ noticed? He shouldn’t be trusted, he thought, to give a reliable account of Hogwarts. He really had missed everything, hadn’t he? Except for what he’d cared to notice.

Later that Sunday as he was brushing his teeth of the remnants of tea from earlier, bracing himself for another week, he thought about what he’d actually miss. Not much, really. Hagrid, Minnie, the routine, maybe. But his friends would leave too, those that were still alive. As he tugged his odd socks onto his freezing feet, he thought about how Hogwarts had changed. And like Classroom Eleven - practically a common room founded among the rubble - he’d just have to make do and move on, instead of fixing what couldn’t be fixed. His spit trickling down his hand, he looked at himself in the mirror. A boy with an ever-paling scar, crossing his face like a brand. That, he couldn’t fix. So he’d just have to move on.

Rinsing his hands of toothpaste, reaching round for his wand, he made his decision. He’d chat with Malfoy. Ask if he’d want to go somewhere, sometime. He looked down at himself - a rangy boy in pyjama bottoms and an old top of Dean’s - and made his way over to the dungeons.

 

[1] All it really was was a big post-booze fry-up, with enough lashings of oil to send anyone to the Hospital Wing.  
[2] After the Divs room took over as the main Divination classroom once Firenze left, there was no use left for it. Amidst the rubble in the post-war clean-up, it had become a gathering place that the Eighths had coopted.


	7. Chapter 7

‘I don’t think you know me like you think you do,’ Malfoy was saying. The two of them were outside the dungeons, floor cold and Warming Charms ineffectual. ‘You sort of just watch me eat and attempt to antagonise me to get my attention, if I’m being perfectly honest.’

‘But do I have to, in the first place, to go on a date with you?’

Harry had no idea when his attempt to get a date had turned into an argument. This was definitely the plan. He had walked down, asked a scared Second Year to fetch Malfoy, and had asked him, blunt and honest, if Malfoy would want to go on a date, sometime. Then this had happened.

‘No, I’m not saying you do,’ Malfoy said, twiddling his wand, evidently frustrated. ‘But you do seem to want to jump into this relationship thing straightaway. I’m not sure either of us are really in the right place for that. I know I’m not, at least.’

‘You’re not?’

‘You have no idea what goes on in here,’ Malfoy said, tapping his head. ‘Listen, Potter. It’s got nothing to do with you. I’m a fucking mess, and personally, I’d like a bit more time before I start complicating my life with a relationship on top of everything else.’

‘So that’s what I am then, a complication,’ Harry said, frustrated.

‘You don’t have to get all defensive, Potter. No, I just think that you think I’m something I’m not. And we should get to know each other first, shouldn’t we?'

‘But that’s literally what the date is for,’ Harry said. He wasn’t proposing, or anything. Was a date too much to ask for?

Malfoy ran with the accidental aggression. ‘I think you’re mistaking me here, Potter,’ he said, weary. ‘I don’t want to get into a relationship at the moment, but that’s not to say I don’t want to get to know you a bit better, maybe give it a chance, perhaps?’

‘So yes, then,’ Harry said, brightening.

‘Fine. Yes, next weekend, or whatever,’ Malfoy said, with a flap of his flannel pyjama sleeve. ‘Am I to organise it, or will you?’

‘Such enthusiasm,’ Harry noticed, tone sharp. ‘If you’re not up for it, say so.’

‘Fine,’ Malfoy said, firm. ‘No, I do not particularly want to go on any date at the moment. We’ve got far too much work and Padma and Lily are organising something that’s taking up a bit of time. I’m supervising the Slytherin Quidditch team in the evenings and have to discuss my community service soon. I’m barely getting any sleep so no, I do not think I’d be particularly good company. Especially since Blaise and I only just broke up. If you wanted your daily dose of Slytherin snark, just take Pansy. She’d be entertaining.’

Harry let him rant, confused. He was suddenly so, so tired.

‘I don’t want to go with Pansy,’ Harry said, trying to salvage the conversation. ‘I want to go with _you_.’

‘But why? It’s not as if you’ve shown particular interest in me.’

Harry struggled to put it into words. Malfoy was -

‘It’s fine, Potter,’ he sighed, looking behind him. ‘There’s no need, because we won’t be going on that date. I’ll see you at Gender Studies next Friday. Do try to say _something_ , as well. Especially given what Padma and Lily’ve planned with Hermione.’

Harry watched his figure disappear back into the dungeons, crushed and not a little disheartened. And what plan? Shuffling back to the dorms, he felt like he had missed something crucial. Not up to asking Hermione, he decided to do what he should have done beforehand - talk to Ron.

‘Honestly, I’m gutted,’ Harry confessed, flopping onto Ron’s bed as he walked in to their dorm, throwing Dean’s top off and putting on one of Neville’s cardigans.

‘Gutted about what?’ Seamus asked, joining him on Ron’s bed.

‘Who’s gutted about what now?’ Dean looked up from his sketchbook and turned to look over at Harry, sprawled in Ron’s bed with four pillows piled over his head, Seamus offering him tea.

‘Haz over here,’ Ron said with a sympathetic pat, ‘is gutted over Malfoy, I presume.’

‘Wait,’ cried Neville, ‘can you repeat that? I missed it,’ from where he was leaning over his trunk, trying to fetch the Ogden’s for whatever crisis he assumed Harry was having.

Harry grinned. He had a warm bed and good mates, and that was all that mattered.

*

New week, new attitude, Harry had surmised. Last night hadn’t been particularly helpful. He’d worked his frustrations out through drinking - then drinking some more - and now he was trying to stuff as much bacon onto his plate without pissing Cornfoot off, who got a bit proprietary over anything involving grease. It was probably why Cornfoot’s hair was so greasy, anyway.

‘Hope you’re happy, Malfoy, now that you have your lunchtime caviar.’ Did Harry detect a slight bit of passive-aggressiveness from Neville there? Cheery, joyful, secret Hufflepuff Neville, acting this way for Harry?

‘But clearly,’ Malfoy said with a shake of his fork, ‘this isn’t caviar – only roe from wild sturgeon counts as caviar. Which salmon isn’t, obviously.’

Fitchy nodded in acquiescence. ‘You a beluga or ossetra man, then?’

‘Beluga? Like those friendly white whales?’ When Malfoy tilted his head towards Harry disapprovingly, Harry felt like that interjection may have been a mistake. He shouldn’t have taken Ron’s advice, to pretend to be unaffected and seem above it all. He should have gone for the moping avenue. Would have been more honest, at least. 

‘No, silly, beluga _sturgeon_. We’ve just been over this Potter, get with it.’ Was Harry projecting, or did Malfoy sound almost _fond_ when he said it? He was projecting, wasn’t he. He should just go back to bed and forget about Malfoy.

‘Do you think he realises?’ Ron asked, when Malfoy stood up to leave after an in-depth mental wank with Fitchy over the merits of truffle. Truffle butter, truffle flakes, truffle this, truffle that. Harry wanted to vacate approximately four times during the conversation, the rest of it he spent wishing he could transcribe it.

‘Realises what,’ Harry mumbled, not feeling particularly up to any sort of conversation. Ignoring Ron and his ‘help’, which had been about as useful as a chocolate teapot, he dug into his sticky toffee. How to get over rejection, he thought, a report by Harry James Potter. Step one: bitterly eat your weight in pud. He wished he was angrier, but Malfoy was right, if he were being honest. They probably shouldn’t be starting anything. And how much did he know about Malfoy _really_?

‘Anyone fancy a trip to Malvern, then?’ Malfoy asked, interrupting Harry’s miserable train of thought.

‘What on earth for? Don’t tell me the spa, for as much as you live like one, you aren’t an aristo from the 1700s,’ Hermione said, smiling a little too fondly for Harry’s tastes. Then again, Harry hadn’t exactly told her about last night, in fear of an overly-sensible reaction, denying him his right to wallow.

‘No, Witley Court. Who doesn’t want an Italianate pleasure palace?’ Malfoy quipped. ‘Besides, I was joking about Malvern. I’m thinking the Hurlingham, actually. It’s only Georgian, but where else to play croquet, hmm?’

‘Croquet is Muggle, though,’ Hermione insisted.

‘Hardly. What made you think that? I suppose I shall have to have the hedgehogs sourced, then, if you’re not up to task,’ Malfoy said with a smile. ‘The Hurlingham’ll provide the flamingos.’

Harry gaped at Malfoy. ‘Like _Alice in Wonderland_?’ Seems the whole ‘ignore Malfoy’ plan wasn’t working after all.

‘Yes, I suppose, but that’s hardly the most famous mentioning of it. A time-honoured tradition, indeed,’ Malfoy said, nodding.

Hermione whipped round. ‘But Lewis Caroll was a Muggle. Hedgehogs and flamingos are Muggle animals.’

Malfoy blinked. ‘As far as I know, not quite on the Lewis Caroll front, and we did try Nifflers and Puffskeins, but they didn’t quite have the same _oomph_ to them.’

Hermione looked like she was struggling for words, perhaps at the thought of animal cruelty. Harry thought he’d have to take a picture. ‘But he was a don, or something of the sort, at Christ Church! Which was founded by Cardinal Wolsey, I know that much. Complete with a funny little hat. I _did_ go to school before Hogwarts, you know - if I didn’t know my Tudors, well…’

‘Being of the Wizarding sort doesn’t preclude you from going to Oxbridge, Hahm. I thought of all people you’d know, I’d assumed you’d applied.’

Hermione looks heartbroken, shocked and excited all at once. ‘I could study there? I could go to uni? Really? And not have to - and I’d be able to - with magic?’

Harry’s heart broke a little for her there. Malfoy looked similarly affected, except in a more constipated manner. ‘I presume so, at least. I’d assumed they’d opened the wizarding faculties up to Muggle-borns, after the war. There seemed to be a whole overhaul of the system of government, so I thought the same of the unis. Or does it still run off nominations? It wasn’t strictly pure-blood or anything, but you know how it was.’ 

Harry could almost taste the awkwardness in the air.

‘I wouldn’t know. Clearly.’ Hermione began to giggle hysterically, perhaps at the thought that her childhood dream could be realised and wasn’t to be crushed by the introduction of the magic she so loved after all.

‘Well, if it is, I’ll have you nominated. You know that, right?’ Malfoy looked so anxious for her it was almost tender. ‘This year’s application cycle’ll be over now, as it’s already past Yule, but I can’t see why you can’t apply for special dispensation to apply late. Or you could take a gap year.’

‘Gap yah,’ Hermione laughed, ‘did you say?’

‘Sorry,’ he said, smiling again. Harry didn’t realise how brilliant it was until it had gone. ‘I’m sure they’d let you apply late. You’d have to jump through all the same hoops but the decisions for this year’s cohort have only just been made, I suspect, so I’m sure there’s space for you. Lots of colleges don’t even take anyone for some of the smaller Triposes, if they don’t find any that suit. And I’m sure you will suit, who else would? Come, now,’ he said, tugging at her arm, ‘have you given any thought to any courses you might like to do?’

Harry let Malfoy lead Hermione away. Harry was happy for her - it would suit her perfectly, he thought. He was glad he was happy, but now he was on his own. Unhappy, dissatisfied and with no idea of where to go or what to do. When he confessed this to Ron later, not wanting to rain on Hermione’s parade, Ron just placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. Harry felt the bone there more so than usual.

‘Don’t you realise, Harry, no one has any clue what they’re doing? It’s just a little easier to pretend, even if it’s only to ourselves.’

‘Maybe you lot are doing too good a job at pretending, then. Pretend a little less, won’t you?’

They laughed, even if it was a little shaky.

‘It’s just that - everyone’s changed,’ Harry said, quiet. ‘I don’t want to fight anymore, don’t want to have to put myself out there again. But everyone’s moved on, and I feel like I can’t keep up.’

‘That’s no bad thing, Haz, that we’ve changed. We were total pricks when we were twelve. Total pricks yesterday, even.’

‘It’s just that - Pav’s lopped her hair off and Parkinson’s grown hers out. Corner’s a nose ring and Han’s dyed her hair some repellant shade of chartreuse,’ Harry explained. ‘Malfoy even sheared his precious hair off last term. It’s too much. We’re not the same as we were, Ron. Don’t you see?’

‘I mean, isn’t that the point?’

Harry’s voice dropped to a whisper, feeling very small. ‘But we were only friends ‘cause of who we were. What if we don’t stay friends? What if we meet again after two months, twenty years, and we don’t recognise each other? We won’t know each other anymore, sure. I suppose we can’t be expected to know every detail about each other, as much as we’re used to that now. But what if we don’t know each other as people anymore, and everything’s just gone?’

Ron just bit his lip, waving Hermione back over. She just sat back next to him, digesting his worries.

‘Is that why you’ve been deliberately trying to not get close to people, and acting so disengagedly? Your friendships don’t have to end just because you leave the castle, you know,’ Hermione said. ‘And look, Harry. You’ve grown your hair out too - it’s in a bun, for Christ’s sake. And we’re still friends, yeah?’

‘I guess,’ Harry said, morose.

‘I change my hair all the time, don’t I?’

Harry knew it had taken Hermione guts to get her hair braided just before Chrimbo. After Parkinson had called Angelina’s braids ‘worms’ back in Fifth Year, she’d had her hair relaxed ever since. If she could be that brave, he thought, so could he. And she was right. They’d still stay friends, probably.

‘We’ll figure it out. Come on, now,’ Hermione said, dragging the both of them to Classroom Eleven.

A pot of sencha later, courtesy of some overeager elves, Harry was feeling less intimidated by the thought of them all splitting off and heading out into the real world, together, yet on their own.

‘Well,’ Hermione posited, ‘you’re not some sort of character in a book, are you? You aren’t going on some journey to Middle-earth,’ laughing at Ron’s confusion. ‘After all, life isn’t some sort of neat little story in which everything turns out alright in the end. Life is messy, and that’s okay.’

‘You’ve got your life sorted,’ Harry whined. He was allowed to feel a bit shit, he thought. He’d thrown away the sheaf of letters from Robards about the Aurors as soon as, but that’s all he knew - that he didn’t want to do more fighting.

‘Yeah, Haz? Really? Because that’s a fucking lie. I have no idea. I don’t know where I’m going to live, what I’m going to do - whether I’ll be accepted for this programme I’ve literally only heard about in the last half hour, or whether I’ll make any friends in the Muggle world again. I literally don’t know anything more than what I’m doing right now, and even that I’m still unsure. No one has any clue. We just take one step at a time because we have to, at some point. And as for the fighting? If I - if _we_ don’t stand up for what we believe in, how can we expect anyone else to?’

The three of them surveyed the destruction around them. It’d been months since clean-up, but they were sitting on two rickety armchairs, held together by softly-spoken spells and love, in a pile of ever-pervading dust and stone that refused to be Banished, no matter how hard they tried.

‘We’re living one big Bildungsroman, aren’t we,’ Hermione murmured. ‘Except the ending is unwritten, and things went to shit.’

‘A what now?’

‘Never you mind,’ she said, pressing a hand to the windowpane in a dramatic mimicry of one of Molly’s novels. ‘We get to forge our own future. We’re lucky,’ she said, glancing round at the debris.

And with that sobering thought, she left for her lesson.

‘I think I’ve missed something,’ Harry said to Ron, sighing as he sipped at the dregs.

Ron turned his head back to Harry from where he was staring out the window, watching the Seconds play a quick game of Quidditch. ‘Hmm?’

‘Who,’ Harry said, with some vigour, ‘the fuck is Hahm?’

‘Malfoy’s rah nickname for Hermione, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Harry replied, rolling his eyes. ‘Why’ve we never heard it?’

‘I guess he’s either said Granger or Hermione,’ Ron said.

‘Christ, imagine being so posh you say Hermione like Hah-mione.’

‘Doesn’t take much imagination, mate, he’s right there. And you alright, then?’

‘Sort of. There wasn’t much to get over, if you know what I mean. He’s right. Didn’t really know him, after all. More like I wanted there to be something. Not sure if there was?’

‘If you’re talking tension, yes there was. But you spend most of your life ignoring that,’ Ron noted. ‘Mostly because for the most part, beyond staring from afar, you ignore him. What’s on the cards, then?’

‘Might be easier to get over him if I let myself like him, for a bit. Be honest, now that I asked him out without really processing my feelings.’

‘Alright, then,’ Ron agreed, walking over to clap him on the back. ‘You like Malfoy. You’ve accepted you like Malfoy. You’re going to continue liking Malfoy. Have fun.’

And with that, he forced Harry to get up, dragging him to Herbology, their dosh subject.

*

Throughout the next week, Ron did his best to be supportive in Harry’s endeavour. This took the form of making compliments that were simply backhanded insults at everyone else, meaning that the compliments were neither very complimentary nor supportive.

‘Say what you want about the fuckhead, but he’s classy. Much classier than Parkinson, that’s for sure. It’s almost like he’s too posh for branded goods, you know? Prefers to go straight for the custom-made. I can respect that in a man, you know. About that lack of brand-names.’

Hermione, ever overeager, continued his train of thought. ‘Yes, yes Ron, inconspicuous consumption. It’s other factors that differentiate the elite from the upper middle class now, because superficially, all the same status symbols can be afforded. Like accruing cultural capital, that’s what marks you out – the right small talk, the right journal articles to read, the right kind of eggs. Zabini and Malfoy spent twenty minutes yesterday talking about the merits of ptarmigan eggs over quail, did you know?’

‘No, I did not, nor do I give a shit. But ta, Herms. My Malfoy knowledge ever grows,’ Ron said.

‘What strikes me as odd,’ Hermione continued, far from oblivious to Harry rapidly shrinking into his seat, but not keen to let the conversation drop as ever, ‘is how they’re absolutely fine at wearing and sharing their cashmere jumpers, no matter how old. The older, the better, it seems, even when it’s no longer viable. Yet they’re just so fussy about having been seen with the latest thing, which they don’t actually want or use.’

‘Really?’ Ron questioned, doubtful. ‘How come Malfoy’s always bragging then? And he’d never be caught dead in a shabby jumper, could you imagine?’

‘I don’t know, maybe if it’s sentimental value? I don’t understand them, in all honesty. And perhaps it’s a facade, I haven’t spent enough time with him on an intimate level to know. I’d say we’re in the range of professional friendship, you know how it is. Not quite personal friendship.’

‘I don’t need to hear intimate and you and Malfoy together, please - my ears! Spare a thought for poor Ron over here,’ Ron said with a laugh. ‘And you have categories of friendship? Gosh, Hermione, so sorry that our seven years of hard-earned bonding is reducible to a box.’

Harry watched Hermione and Ron give each other sappy looks beneath their teasing exteriors. Ouch.

‘Sorry,’ Harry said, wincing, ‘do you mind if we change topics a bit? And not talk about him anymore? It’s just…’

Ron and Hermione’s rushed assurances and hasty deflections were almost worse. By now, Hermione had heard about the aborted blowjob situation and the terrible date fiasco - in minute, terrible detail.

‘Oh, Harry,’ she had sympathised. ‘At least it went better than the Cho thing, don’t you think? And it was a good thing that neither of you did anything. You couldn’t consent, if both of you were drunk.’

‘What an achievement,’ he had replied, grim. ‘Better than the Cho thing. I’ll have that put on my application for whatever I’m doing after Hogwarts, shall I?’

Later that Wednesday night, when Harry was tucked in bed leafing through several Curse-Breaking leaflets, he felt like it was perhaps a better idea to have not mentioned anything about Malfoy at all. Especially given Ron’s rather dramatic entrance after coming back from the dungeons, having gone to spy on him to see if he could help Harry in matters of the heart.

‘Malfoy’s such a ponce,’ Ron seethed. ‘Who the fuck has such strong feelings about water? He doesn’t drink Conjured water, did you know? Or tap water, which is why he puts that elderflower shit in it. He has glass jars of water that better cure all illnesses placed on his fucking bedside table from some Alpine place and do you know what? I don’t want to know any of this shit. I really, really don’t, even though I don’t mind him so much anymore. But I went and spied on him and his friends anyway, because I’m a damn good friend. Do you know how difficult it is for someone my height to skulk around? Pretty fucking difficult, let me tell you that.’

Harry just smiled. He suspected it came off a tad weak.

‘It’s alright Ron, you didn’t have to do that. I appreciate it anyway, but maybe I just need to give up and move on, properly.’

‘No mate, we’ve come this far,’ Ron enthused, thumping him on the back. ‘Hermione’s converted me into becoming a bit of a fan - but only a tad, mind. He’s not so bad after all, despite the water fiasco. And Harry - you can’t quit now!’

‘Malfoy isn’t some sort of prize, Ron. And quit what?’

‘Trust me, I know. And I’m glad you know that too. But you aren’t giving up, are you? He literally didn’t say anything bad about _you_. Just that he wasn’t in the mood.’

‘Thanks for that Ron,’ he said dryly. ‘And he’d never say yes anyway. The only logical thing to do with a crush is swallow it and take it to my grave, clearly.’

Ron sighed, his expression fond.

‘Haz, Malfoy likes water.’

‘Good for him,’ Harry said, drawing his duvet up to his chin. ‘But I’m changing tactics. We’re moving on from this appalling blip in life by suppressing any and all thoughts of it.’

‘No I mean, _really_ likes water. Maybe you should give him some,’ Ron laughed, throwing himself onto Harry’s quilt by the end of his bed. ‘State your intentions and all that.’

‘Ron, you can stop with the ribbing already. I know how hopeless this all is,’ Harry groaned, throwing his leaflets to one side. ‘He’s a top-level twat with a water fetish who probably needs to be courted with nine Quidditch pitches worth of diamond lace or whatnot, and seven pools of Swiss water infused with truffle oil, or whatever.’

The thing was, Ron was a good mate. His best mate, even. Such a best mate that he was willing to join Harry in his stalking reconnaissance endeavours, but as a best mate, he was also always up for taking the piss. This was made very clear as he cackled his way through their room, satisfied that Harry wasn’t too sad about it all.

‘This is why Herm’s my best friend, not you. You can fuck right off, Ron,’ Harry said, rolling his eyes. But even as he said that, Harry was busy planning on how to get Malfoy Malfoy-sanctioned water without coming off as a complete creep and lovelorn git, both of which he emphatically was. Shit.

Harry decided he was perhaps better off just playing the whole of Blur’s _13_ for the third time that day. Blur had never confused him. Not like having a crush had.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry’s Friday night was mostly spent thinking about not thinking about Malfoy. This was proceeding along swimmingly, evidently.

‘Haz,’ came a muffled call from behind his bed curtain, as he was contemplating finding a house big enough for Ron and Hermione’s shagging, Parvati and himself.

Roused from his mindless wandering, Harry whipped open his curtains to see Ron’s pale face, arranged into something resembling concern. 

‘Hey, mate,’ Harry said, wiggling his single sock off. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Pick-up Quidditch with Gin and Malfoy,’ Ron said, red and golds donned. ‘You up?’

‘Nah. Not this time, not feeling like it, yeah? Maybe next time?’

Ron frowned, leaving Harry to his thoughts, the both of them knowing full well he’d used this same excuse all throughout the last term. Nevermind, Harry thought. Maybe they’d have the good eggs for Saturday breakfast.

An hour later, he wandered down to find Hermione in Classroom Eleven, too bored with moping but not arsed enough to join Ron, Gin and _Malfoy_ for a quick pick-up. Harry kicked the door open with his foot, letting it crash into the wall with a bang. 

‘So Malfoy mentioned a plan,’ he called out to her, unsure, casting a Warming Charm. Shuffling onto the sofa to join her with a sigh, he looked up at Hermione. He was suddenly struck by how human she seemed - sitting with a face mask on, surrounded by textbooks and leaflets, advertising the course she wanted to do at Oxford. A few white stretch marks peeked out from behind the folds of her bathrobe, mirroring Ron’s scar. 

Hermione looked at him quizzically, letting her parchment float to the floor. ‘You’re interested? I didn’t think you’d be.’

‘I suppose,’ he shrugged. ‘I don’t know what it’s about, do I?’

‘A couple of us thought that the reading she was giving us was a bit limited. Granted, Professor Ravenclaw is a millennium-old portrait, but it’s a bit - I don’t know, stale? Anyway, we thought we’d do some of our own research, and come up with a few different ideas to do in lessons. Different people too, like Darcus Howe, Stuart Hall and Mary Seacole, and some more contemporary feminists.’

‘Right,’ Harry said, unsure of who they were, but making a note to look them up later. He might even chat to Rivers about it. _Actually_ , this time. ‘So where does Malfoy come in, then?’

‘He’s been helping us identify a few wizarding activists we can add to our list. It’s an action project of sorts, I guess you could say,’ Hermione enthused. ‘He’s very involved.’

Harry frowned. ‘No, I’ve seen the copies of his readings in class. They’re blank,’ he said, unsure as to why she was laughing.

‘You know,’ she said, in between giggles, ‘I’m surprised you didn’t realise.’ Her smile lines crinkling, she offered Harry her cuppa. 

Harry, confused as he took it, sipped loudly. ‘What?’

‘That Draco’s been doing all the reading, and does have a lot of questions,’ Hermione laughed. ‘Far more than you. He’d just rather ask me and Padma after the lesson. He swaps out his annotated copy for a blank one for the lesson.’

‘ _Why_? Who’s arsed to do that?’ Harry was perplexed. How odd of Malfoy. 

She shrugged. ‘Him, apparently.’

Well, Harry thought, preparing himself for another few hours of obsessive thoughts and sulking. Fuck. 

His listlessness was broken the next day upon an owl divebombing into _his_ breakfast, this time. It was a request for an interview, as always. Just as he was about to toss it, Hermione’s hand clamped down onto his.

‘I know you don’t like them,’ she said, hesitant, ‘but it’d be good exposure for the lessons we’re doing, don’t you think?’

Harry looked back at her, unimpressed. Fishing the letter out of his pumpkin juice with some trepidation, he made to chuck it over his shoulder. 

‘Please,’ she implored. ‘It’s not as if you’ve _done_ anything about it, so far. Draco’s doing more than you are.’

‘Fine,’ he grumped, scowling, offering the owl a rasher of bacon. ‘Fine, fine, fine. Just this once. Just to promote your project, and the lessons. But you’re writing my next essay,’ he threatened. Scanning the letter for the details - that _afternoon?_ \- he chose to remember her beam instead. 

‘Doing your essay for you is completely not the point, Harry,’ he thought he heard her mutter. But whatever, he thought. She owed him.

*

It was a breezy Saturday afternoon. Almost pleasant, if you ignored the gnawing wind. Completely ruined, of course, by the incoming presence of a reporter, whom Minnie led to the bench Harry was sat on. 

‘Mr Potter,’ the reporter said meaningfully, tipping his hat forward as he dusted invisible lint from his coat.. ‘Thank you for all that you’ve done.’

‘…You’re welcome, I guess,’ Harry said, tugging on his jacket sleeves. He let himself fixate on the Whomping Willow to his left, preparing himself for the questions to come. It was a grim Saturday afternoon, and he could think of many - well, three things he’d rather be doing.

‘So for the first of our questions,’ the reporter said, setting up his Quick-Quotes Quill with aplomb, ‘how has it been, coming back to Hogwarts after the Battle? Do you regret coming back? I understand you were offered a highly-coveted place by the Aurors in their training programme?’

‘Erm, no, I don’t think so. I’m not sure I’d have been ready to take another avenue, then,’ Harry replied, tying his hair into a bun to get it off his face. The antsy feeling wouldn’t let go of him, though, and he was left there on the bench, squirming.

‘So do you feel ready to leave now, as opposed to before? What’s on the cards for our intrepid hero?’

He didn’t know if the truth would be very flattering, nor very newsworthy. 

‘I’d rather not say, for the moment,’ Harry replied instead, finding a rather interesting branch to look at. 

‘And now onto a question our readers have been dying to know - Is there anyone you’ve been seeing?’

‘Ah,’ Harry said, tucking a stray hair from behind his ear, ‘absolutely not.’

‘Quite an emphatic statement from Mr Potter here,’ the reporter concurred, shuffling through his parchment. Landing upon a question of interest, his face lit up as he scribbled something beside it. Harry tried not to worry. 

‘So, Mr Potter,’ the reporter said determinedly, ‘where _are_ you from?’

Harry blinked at him, thrown. A complete non-sequitur, but he’d been around long enough to know what was coming.

‘I was raised in Surrey, but I see Hogwarts as my home, really,’ trying not to seem too fed up.

‘But where are you _from_?’

‘I was born in Godric’s Hollow,’ he said, enthusiasm terribly apparent in his languid tone and the secretive roll of his eyes. ‘It’s in the West Country, but my mum’s from Cokeworth in the Midlands. My dad was raised in Colchester, though,’ he replied, unsure if this much personal information was safe to give out. 

‘But,’ the reporter said, unabashed, ‘where are you _originally_ from?’

Harry looked at the reporter blankly, determined to make this as difficult for him as possible. 

‘Little Whinging in Surrey,’ Harry said, purposefully slowly, ‘if you wanted the specifics.’

Evidently frustrated, the reporter stared at him, waving pointedly at Harry’s form. ‘Surrey? But you’re not from here, are you?’

Harry didn’t know if he could laugh without the headline turning into something along the lines of _Aggressive War Hero Threatens Disbelieving Local Reporter, a Danger to the Community_. 

‘No, I was born here, actually,’ Harry said.

‘But -’

‘And raised. And I’m quite happy, thank you,’ he said, tone firm. He wanted to get back into bed, or perhaps scream out his window. Where was Hermione when he needed her? This interview was swiftly climbing to the top of his most regrettable instances in life. And they hadn’t even got to Hermione’s project, yet.

‘But has it been difficult, then, growing up without your father’s culture?’

He was at a complete loss. What on earth was he supposed to say to that? Just as his day had been looking up, as well. ‘Big up Colchester,’ he said weakly, trailing off. ‘Erm, yeah, that was some solid chat there, mate, I’ll be off now.’

And with that, Harry ran back to his dorm, wrapping his jacket round his rangy frame.  
Kicking his shoes off as he stumbled back into the room, he whipped his jacket off with a huff.

‘I’m going to die,’ he whined, spotting Ron planning the next Quidditch match on Harry’s bed.

‘Hmm? What melodrama has there been, then?’

‘You would not _believe_ what the reporter said to me just now,’ Harry said, flopping onto Dean’s bed.

‘Honestly,’ Ron said with a grin, waving his quill about, ‘I’m absolutely distraught that I’m giving off the impression that I give a shit.’

‘You don’t, I’m ignoring you,’ Harry laughed. ‘My need to vent overrides your inability to have any feelings resembling that of a human, thanks.’

Dean sat beside him with a huff, looking at him knowingly. ‘Was it one of _those_ questions, then?’

‘Yeah,’ Harry said, looking at him meaningfully. ‘What a dickhead.’

‘I’ve tickets to West Ham next weekend,’ Dean offered. ‘What say we go to Uptown Park, yeah? You and me. We haven’t properly chatted in a bit. You can tell me ‘bout this geezer then, over a pint or two. Bring a scarf, mate.’

Harry smiled, tension forgotten. He hadn’t had the opportunity to chat to Dean lately - well, anyone, really. Probably his fault for isolating himself so, but it _was_ nice to be back in the fold. 

‘Could Parvati come?’ Harry asked. ‘Only that we’ve been chatting a bit lately about the Muggle world versus the wizarding, especially expectations and culture, and she’d have a laugh, watching all the lads at the footy.’

‘Sure,’ Dean said. ‘The more the merrier. Tell her to bring her mate Morag along too, will you? I think Morag’d get on great with Shay. Same humour, don’t you think?’

Saying his goodbyes, he reminded himself to go grab a cuppa with Parvati later to invite her along. As he had discovered last term, she was always up for a good gab, even as knackered as she seemed to be lately. She’d chosen to apply to Magizoology schools to study Magilepidoptery, her latest obsession. Come to think of it, Harry realised, it had been going on for a good few years now - he still teased her about her butterfly clip phase from way back when. 

He was just about to head out to the Greenhouses, deciding to appreciate the Highland sunset reporter-free, when Malfoy accosted him on the Grand Staircase.

‘Potter.’

Harry turned to see Malfoy there, looking almost hesitant. How odd for the brash Malfoy, always so present. 

‘Hi,’ Harry said, leaving it up to Malfoy. What an inconvenient place for him to start a conversation, Harry thought. He _did_ have Shrivelfig plant to attend to. And he would _not_ give in, he told himself, to whatever Malfoy asked of him. 

‘So you know how I have to do community service?’

‘Yes,’ Harry said, unsure of where this was going. The cords of his neck tensing, he looked a little off to his left. If Malfoy was going to ask him for a good word, he could do one. Pulling his hair into a bun, he found a particularly interesting piece of gum on the sole of his shoe. Damn MacDougal and her Bubbaloo, he thought.

‘I,’ Malfoy said, uncharacteristically shy, ‘was thinking of joining Greg, to do our community service together. In his sculpture and carpentry - well, along the same vein, really. We’re going off to the Isle of Wight, to give art lessons to Muggle schoolchildren. I’ll be doing painting and crafts with them, Greg, pottery.’

‘That’s nice,’ Harry said, conscious of the fact that he’d be thrown off the staircase at any point now. 

‘Well, I was thinking,’ Malfoy said, looking at some point over Harry’s shoulder, ‘maybe you could come visit, some time.’

‘I think I’d like that,’ Harry said, feeling the tips of his ears grow warm. ‘Have our date, then?’

‘Yes,’ Malfoy said, smiling. ‘I suppose. How are your art skills, then?’

‘Appalling,’ Harry confessed. ‘You’ll have to teach me.’

‘I suspect that’ll have to take a few lessons, then. Might be a while.’

‘I have time,’ Harry grinned, the staircase choosing this moment to crumple beneath his feet. Fuck, he thought, bursting into laughter. What an end to his day.

But it was alright, he thought, wrapping his fingers into his pockets as he hummed the lastest Oasis song. He’d get involved with Padma and Lily and Hermione’s project. He’d finally put out an ad in the _Prophet_ announcing the project, but also refusing to do any more interviews. He could do all sorts, he realised with another laugh. He could go visit Malfoy and his Muggle school-children, even. With Greg the potter, he thought, letting himself smile at that. 

On his way to Classroom Eleven, ready to tell Hermione everything, he quite literally ran into Lily Moon.

‘Ah - shit, sorry,’ Harry said, steadying her. ‘Like your jumper, by the way.’

Lily had gone for a peach knit which really was rather nice. Harry would have to ask where she’d found that, sometime. 

‘Thanks,’ Lily said, looking a bit uncertain. ‘I’m off to plan our action project for next Friday with Hermione and Padma. I assume you’re also off to find Hermione?’

‘Yes,’ Harry said, shuffling about. Were they both going to head to Classroom Eleven together? Would he hang about in the corridor until she got there, then go? Or should he get there before Lily did, so he could take all of Hermione’s time?

‘Let’s go together, then,’ Lily said, cautious even as she stood firm. ‘You can join us in our project.’

A week ago, Harry knew he’d have said no and made a hasty retreat. But this time, he thought about it. Nodding, he gestured it front of him.

‘Lead the way,’ he said amicably. ‘The project sounds like a good idea, I think. Diversify the syllabus and all. Goes with the spirit of the class, doesn’t it?’

Lily nodded. ‘It’s the least controversial way to upend the syllabus, I think - by offering intersectional suggestions, by way of an action project. We’re going to be making posters, badges, even embroidering. Draco’s a great help in that area, actually. He’s quite the covert artist.’

Harry had never had a conversation with Lily in his life, but she was proving to be quite the formidable figure. 

‘Solid,’ Harry said, a smile escaping. ‘So a revolution, then.’

Lilly laughed, her earrings - borrowed off Luna, clearly - swaying. ‘A crafts-based revolution indeed, from the comforts of our beds.’

As they approached Classroom Eleven, Lily telling Harry all about the colours they could use and Harry blankly nodding with a genuine smile this time, Harry snorted.  
‘Who would think,’ he said as he opened the door, ‘that’d we be here? Less than a year after the war, waiting for spring to come? Greeting the world with slogans and magical knitting and floating posters?’

Lily laughed, ushering him onto a sofa. Harry scanned the room, spotting Malfoy and Hermione on the floor, Charming a giant sign to flash just like Malfoy’s badges from Fourth year. 

‘The future waits for no one,’ Hermione piped up from the floor, where she was busy adding another layer of colour, ‘time for us to do something about it, hey?’

‘Come help us think of slogans, Harry,’ Padma said from behind him, brandishing some tinsel from Yule. Harry would rather not know what on earth that could be for.

‘Yes,’ Hermione concurred, winking, ‘some that would appeal to the neutralists such as yourself.’

Harry edged towards where Malfoy was, blushing when their knees touched. ‘Nice colours,’ Harry said, stumbling over his words.

Malfoy didn’t look up, gesturing in the vague direction of Lily instead. ‘She’s the authority on colour, here. Now are you going to help, or just stare again?’

An hour later, the five of them emerged from Classroom Eleven - weary, dusty and happy. Harry had fully embraced Lily’s colour choices, choosing to team up with Herm in a rather eccentric wool-based poster with details of some wizarding feminist activist written in gold, Charmed to grow double in size whenever anyone walked past.

‘Effective,’ Harry had said. ‘But a bit much?’

Hermione had just snickered. ‘Have you _met_ the people at Hogwarts? When has anything ever been sedate?’

The next day at breakfast, after a restful night’s sleep, Harry thought he could almost see the joy brimming out of him. Whistling some Sleeper as he headed to breakfast, he made his plans for the day with a smile. He’d go spy on the crocuses blooming outside later, he thought, on his way to making sure his third Shrivelfig hadn’t died in the night. This time round, he might even try keep it alive. He’d catch up with Luna and Gin then, grab that cuppa with Parvarti, take her and Morag to the footy with Dean and Seamus. 

As he spotted the gap at their breakfast table where Neville should be, he realised that he hadn’t spoken to Neville properly in a while. Poking his sunny side up, he thought he might even pop to the greenhouses, taking all the cardies he’d nabbed off Neville as a surprise. Grab Neville a cinnamon roll while he was at it as well - the boy deserved it. Telling Ron of his plans, Ron just grinned. 

‘Love it, Haz,’ Ron said, throwing a few pancakes onto Harry’s plate cheerily. ‘Come with us running, then? Or for Sunday pick-up match, even? You and me, versus Malfoy and Gin. They’re a fiery team, alright.’

‘Definitely,’ Harry agreed, shoving Ron to the side with a laugh, looking forward to flying for the first time in yonks - looking forward to it all, he realised.

Hermione’d get into Oxford, he knew, sending a smile her way. And their campaign would be a success, he was sure - he had slightly less hope for Ron’s marmalade, but he’d never felt so lighthearted, not since the war. He’d go do everything he’d said he’d do - go on a date with Malfoy, even. See how it’d go, but he had a good feeling. Meeting Malfoy’s eyes from across the table, taking his jam with a wink, he thought he might make plans for an _extended_ stay at the Isle of Wight. Maybe put his new-found crafting skills to good use. 

Yes, he thought. _Yes._

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has attempted to mimic what might happen in a teenage environment with regards to consent, especially when considering enthusiasm and how that is vocalised. It has also attempted in addressing consent and the surrounding issues from an educational point of view, to explore the contemporary mindset of young people.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! You can find me @untilourapathy on tumblr! Feel free to come say hi and ask about anything - the characters, what happens after (or before or during) or even chat about breakfast foods! xx


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